Tee Quilts

My friend Jean has been taking her kids t-shirts and making them into blankets for years....solving the problem of what to do with those t shirts that are memories of teams or activities .  Recently a client asked if I could do the same for 3 boxes of t shirts that she had been saving of her and her husbands t's as well as her kids.

Blending Miami U with the MD Terapins....!!

with some Phillies and Eagles added!

Bright colors put together

Cutting and piecing the major parts of the t's in varying widths breaks up the sizes of the rows in this quilt.

Multiple team shirts

Piecing together t shirts using rectangle spacers between

By placing the parts in different directions there is no top or bottom, so it looks right from all directions.

Binding is the back folded over then stitched

Polartec 100 a very lightweight version of this fabric is used to back the quilts.  It is washable and colorfast plus thermal so even though the front is made of t shirt material the back is very soft and snug.

Polartec folded over to make the edge

The backing on this quilt was pieced together from 2 colors polartec, black and grey.  Then it is folded over the edge and sewn through and through.

The finished quilt

Giant Knitting

Another of those crafts that I will probably never do, but have great admiration for is:  knitting.  I was into sewing at a very young age, and though my mother taught me the basics of knitting, the knitting bug never got me. 

My friend Jean, on the other hand, is what I would consider a master knitter.   

A small throw, knitted in a chunky, very soft wool.

Over the last 20 years,  I've watched her create the most amazing knitted garments and blankets.  There are always multiple projects going simultaneously,.... and they are all different...Jean is constantly exploring what she hasn't tried yet -- and so has worked with a wide range of yarns and knitting patterns.

Fabulous dress knit by Jean...love it!

The other day she sent me photos of a new project she was working on, I didn't notice that she was knitting in a completely different size of needle...serious jumbo size!

Close up it looks like regular size knitting

Pictured on the sofa...those cushions are probably 2 feet wide!

Knitting needles: 2" diameter...3 and 1/2 feet long!!


Giant knitting needles are definitely all the rage with the knitting crowd.  In fact, they were featured at a knitting convention in NYC that we went to a few months ago.  And though I didn't try it, I watched as people were trying it out.  It didn't look like it was easy to do.

This throw blanket was knit with:  Knit One Share One, K1S1 yarn which is made in New Zealand from high grade merino wool.  The yarn is like bump, which is a inner lining in well-made drapes...it is soft and lightweight.

So after approximately 6 hours of knitting...Voila! a blanket large enough to use as a throw on a queen size bed, seen pictured above.  Jean said it gets very heavy towards the end---handling all that weight while the knitting is still on the needles,...leading me to believe that it is probably good exercise for the arms!  Maybe, just maybe, I may try it.. 

  

  

H. Hankin Quilt Project

Nancy Hankin, an artist from Villanova, Pa had been saving a treasure trove of beautiful handmade knitwear for 40 years.  Her mother Harriet, also an artist, was a prolific knitter.  During the 60's through 80's Harriet had knitted an amazing body of work which included finished, lined Chanel like suits, soft unstructured jacket and dress suits, as well as a serious amount of sweaters.   The pieces were a snapshot of the of the styles of the time in which they were made, and no one in Nancy's family was interested in wearing them. 

After storing this 100 piece collection for so many years, Nancy wanted to re purpose the knitwear into into quilts that could be given to each of her 7 grandchildren.  She felt that it would be a wonderful memento of their great-grandmothers work that they would always have.  So started the quilt project....to develop 7 quilts + 1 for Nancy.

Normally we make quilts out of woven materials--  but knitted material?  Never did it... but it was an interesting possibility.  

After cleaning all the pieces by washing on gentle cycle with low agitation to prevent shrinkage, the pieces were sorted into color groups to get colors that worked together.  These are the pieces for quilt #4.

 Finally, by quilt #4 how to cut, piece and sew the quilts had been figured out.   The hardest part of each quilt is cutting the pieces into usable sections and then putting them together in some cohesive way.

 

 Each knit has its own amount of stretch so sewing pieces together is not an exact science.  After getting over the fact that it's impossible sew the pieces together perfectly straight sewing became a lot easier.

Each quilt has Harriet's hand knit label placed somewhere on the quilt.

A backing and binding is selected and used to finish the quilt.

                                                                        Finished Quilt # 4