Thoughts from the T-Shirt Lady

I finally finished my quilt! And it’s a very satisfying feeling.

It sat on the table for the longest time - basted, and I always found other things that had to be done. Do you think I was putting it off?

I took my quilt to the local quilt shop Ladybug located here in Suffolk, VA. The owner took a picture for her website that’s being redesigned. So as soon as the picture is uploaded to her website - I’ll add it here too!

Also found some useful tools at her shop - a large basting needle - that should make the basting go much faster. And some clips to use on the binding to hold it in place better than pins when I am hand stitching it. And yes - I used hand stitching on the binding. I’m not much good at hand stitching and usually try to do just machine sewing - but I tried it anyway. It came out looking good

I did the quilting itself on the sewing machine - just with straight lines at the edges of the squares. Another time, I will try my hand at quilting by moving the quilt around as I stitch. But that’s for when I am more proficient!

For my next quilt project I will be making one to fit on a twin sized bed, for one of my granddaughters. It uses Pooh and Friends fabric. I’ve started cutting out the squares - but I’m not rushing…

Sandi

I always wanted to get into quilting.

For years, I worked a full time job - about an hour away from my home. It was get up at 4am, get ready to go to work. Leave by 5am. Get to work at 6am, work til 3 or 4 and then drive back home. I was asleep most nites by 8pm! That left the weekend, for any extra tasks or projects. You can just imagine how much I really got done on the weekends - grin….

Now that I’m retired, and finished with all my cancer treatments - retired the end of May 2006, and finished my cancer treatments mid December 2006, I ready to get started!

I have my own sewing business, and recently purchase some beautiful Disney fabrics - Cars and Pooh. I had planned on using them to make some new children’s shirts - but when I got the fabric, some from Ebay and some from Walmart - I discovered that it was for home use only. Well, I should have known!

So I decided that I wanted to make some single bed sized quilts for the grandchildren using these fabrics. But since I had never done any quilting before, I decided to try something small first.

About 18 months ago, I had purchased some really cute 4″ dragonfly fabric squares from Ebay, thinking that maybe I would make a pillow or something. And the fabric just sat there.

Armed with my fabric squares, I went to my local quilting shop, and we found a pattern that would look good, using the squares. I hoped it would be a simple task - I had no foot on my sewing machine that would give me an accurate 1/4″ seam, so I just did the best I could.

Here’s what it looked like after sewing the squares together.

Next I added a 1″ black border, and a 4″ dragonfly border.

I will add pictures as I get more done with this quilt. Finally have time to work on it!

Sandi