I have been asked by a widow to look at her husband's clothes, especially his shirts, to advise her about making quilts for their grandchildren. I may decide to make the quilt top for her myself, and advise her to hire a long-arm quilter to finish the quilt.
The best website I've found is
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I have also found
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,
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There are scads of websites about making t-shirt quilts, which doesn't interest us.
I'd be happy to hear about anyone's favorite sites or your experiences with making dress shirt quilts.
TIA, ep (Since I wrote last, I finished my first bed-size quilt in a Tree Everlasting pattern and finished a bed-size Churn Dash quilt top. I have also started a crazy quilt. I LOVE crazying quilting!!!!!)
EP, whatEver are we going to do with you? You simply just must dive in and learn to do digital camera so you can show us your creations. I'm specially eager to see your crazy quilt blocks. Are you beginning with a 5 sided piece? what are you using for a base (if anything)? and are you machine embroidering the seams? tossing in lace and ribbon? using fancy fabric? what? PICTURES ? we want pictures. Don't make me come down there. Actually, you know, I could. Polly
Hand embroidering. I'm using stitches I've never used before, and tons of leftover cotton and silk floss, and woolen needlepoint yarn. I even bought
4mm ribbon to learn ribbon embroidery (in addition to the ready-made ribbon flowers I found at Daphne Fabric).
Oh yes. And beads, buttons, ric-rac, ribbon embroidery, and metal charms. Daphne Fabric and Lace is a treasure trove of embellishments and I hit a 50 cent sale for the charms in the jewelry-making department at Hobby Lobby.
Yes, a wide variety of silk, satin, velvet, woolen, cotton, and linen from both my own youthful wardrobe that my mother made and from thrift-store clothes I bought specifically to use the fabrics.
A big part of the prep time was just laying out the fabrics on the dining room table and deciding on the overall color choices. Then assembling a collection of all sorts of needles, including milliners and chenille needles, of which I had never before even heard!
I am piecing the blocks on the sewing machine, a few at a time, then I embellish them while watching television in the evenings. I can embellish about three blocks per two movies. :-)
Well of course that's why I refuse to buy a camera, Polly -- to force you to come for a visit!
I'm coming in late here EP but here is the quilt I made from shirts from my BIL.
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Easy and doesn't look too bad. I think it was Alice W. that did a bunch of memorial quilts last year. I don't sew for money so I can't help you on that part but you are right there are lots of smart folks here that can probably help. Taria
Absolutely beautiful. And straightforward, too. I think that's exactly the kind of "feel" she wants for the boys' quilts.
But one of the challenges I have here is that I have to make six quilts out of several dozen shirts and a few light-weight suits and trousers. I'm leaning toward doing bed-size quilts (I posted before that I was thinking of lap quilts) using traditional patchwork patterns punctuated by blocks, sashing, and borders cut from new, whole cloth. I can whip out Churn Dash, Tree Everlasting, Shoo Fly, etc., blocks fairly quickly even though I would not be quick-piecing from whole cloth.
This larger size will drive the price up, but the woman is quite wealthy, wants heirlooms, and would doubtless prefer bed-size quilts. I don't think she's would go as high as the $3K I'm seeing being charged for making elaborate bed-size quilts, but I think she'd be willing to pay a few hundred dollars each for the six quilts she wants, and I think that would be worth my while for the simple designs I'm envisaging.
I've explained to her that cutting clothes is going to cost more time and money than cutting whole cloth, and she understands. The good news is that the shirts are already pressed and starched from the laundry.
I don't feel competent to machine-quilt as well as I should for these quilts, so I either have to make a few practice quilts or hire a long-arm quilter. I gather that it's a couple of hundred dollars minimum to hire long-arm quilting for a bed-size piece. I would feel quite competent to hand-quilt fairly open, traditional motifs if she wants, but I would have to charge an arm and a leg for my time.
This is rather exciting. If I do a good job, she and her friend who referred me to her are from wealthy, established families and are about the best source of word-of-mouth business I could possibly find around here. I certainly never planned to become a "professional" quilter, but it will at least be fun to give it a try.
We meet face-to-face on Monday, and I'll see the clothes then.
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