Flying_V_Goddess

I don't think I've quilted anything this year. Haven't really had the time or the motivation. Now I'm motivated and its not like a month before I have to get the quilt done.

I had an idea a while back to do a quilt for myself made out of Kittie (the all-female Canadian heavy metal band) shirts. The idea came back to me when I was listening to their music in the car while reading the quilting catalog I got in the mail. Only I don't want to do the quilt for myself. I've been dating this guy for almost four months now and I hope it works out 'cause I really like him. So I want to get him something for Christmas, but every idea I had for a gift I wasn't 100% sure on. It was always "I think its nice, but will he think so too?" or "What if he has this?" or it just wasn't special enough. When I remembered the Kittie quilt I was like "That's the perfect gift! Its both our favorite band, we met on the Kittie forums, and I doubt he already has one lying around".

Besides trying to find t-shirts (many of the shirts I'm trying to find are out of print), I'm not really sure how to go about making this. Jersey knit is a lot strechier than your typical quilting cotton. Should I use interface? Should I quilt with a larger seam? What are some other things I should know before tackling a quilt made out of t-shirts?

ktbb

good luck on finding the right T shirts. Yes, you'll need to use a fusible interfacing to stabilize the t-shirts, but once that's on, you can add sashing, etc as in normal quilting. Different folks have favorite interfacing, so you need to decide which one to use. I'd suggest nothing heavy...you want the stabilized t-shirts to be approximately the same weight as the cotton you'll be using for sashing, etc.

feline fanatic

I just PM'd you with instructions I did up for another member.

Flying_V_Goddess

Here’s the image(s) of the quilt idea that I made in PhotoShop. I took the images of the t-shirts and put them in with borders and lattice to get an idea what the quilt would look like. With PhotoShop I was also able to get the whole quilt in scale. I did have to censor a few t-shirt images for posting purposes. I’m sure you can guess which one had the bad word in it and the others are maybe just a tad bit too graphic or vulgar for some…afterall, all female or not, these are shirts from a heavy metal band.

I’m guesstimating the final measurements (basing it off my own Kittie shirt). With 1” sashing and 4” borders the quilt comes out to 83x83”. Seems like a lot, but Tim is over 6 feet tall. If I took out a row of shirts then it’d be too short for him. The numbers are subject to change when I actually get the shirts. Hopefully I can start buying on the next paycheck.

I couldn’t really decide on what color to do for the borders and lattice. I originally was going to try it with red (Tim’s favorite color other than black), but it looked really garish. So I did the whole thing in grey. But then I did a deeper red and that actually doesn’t look half bad. Now I’m not sure what to go with. What do you think looks better?

[IMG]http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...2_greycopy.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...A2_redcopy.jpg[/IMG]

Flying_V_Goddess

No feedback on the color schemes?

kat112000

I like both of the color schemes.

FancyFoot

That would make a great Christmas gift.
I like the grey one.
Good luck getting all the shirts.

Flying_V_Goddess

About half of them are currently sold on the official website so at least getting half of them should be a breeze. Had to kind of dig around for the other half

Flying_V_Goddess

That's the problem...I like both of them, too. lol.

wolfkitty

How about a small red border (around the whole thing), and then the gray, wider border? Use gray for the sashing around the squares.That would give color without being overpowering.