Making A Memory Quilt / Recycling Old Clothes (aka T Shirt Quilt)

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Zoe bigs. And in this class I'm going to show you how to make a memory quilt, also known as a T-shirt quilt. A memory quilt is a quilt made out of anything that holds memories. How tired are you of all those storage bins full of old shirts and special memorabilia, taking up drawers and closet space. It's time to take those items and transform them into a beautiful memory quilt that you can enjoy today. My very first quilt was made out of my daughter's baby clothes that I had saved in one of those storage bins. These quilts can be made out of T-shirts, sport jerseys, AB blankets, costumes, concert T's camp shirts, shorts, jeans, pajama bottoms, and Diana's college shirts, shirts from a deceased loved one. I have even included parts of a bathing suit and even a Girl Scout vest with all of its patches. In this class, I'm going to show you how to take all of those items, figure out a layout, a design, cut everything up. So everything up. And finally, make yourself a cozy quilt. I think of myself as an all-around artists. I love sewing and sewing projects just as much as I love painting, drawing, art, journaling, gluing, collaging building. I bought my first sewing machine 19 years ago. And ever since then I haven't stopped learning new things. Five-years ago, I started my memory quilt adventure started as a hobby and got very popular very fast as soon as the other moms heard about what I was doing and wanted graduation gifts for their students. What's next? Go and get all your shirt that we spoke about earlier. Bring it back here. We'll go over the supply list, the stages of the project. And before you know it will be beginning your layout and organizing your shirts for your memory cloth. 2. Class Project: In this Skillshare class, I'm going to show you how to take all of those special T-shirts and memorabilia and make them into a nap size memory, approximately 54 inches by 78 inches. To be successful in this class, you should feel comfortable using irregular home sewing machine and iron and then ironing board and a rotary cutter on a map. There are some other supplies you need and we'll go over those in the supplies lesson. Each lesson reveals the blanket being born and that's very exciting. This is recycling at its best. Once your shirts and memorabilia items are gathered, we will start by separating them into three piles. Then we will spread out the shirts and a good workspace and begin to see the layout of your memory quote. Next comes cutting. We cut the shirts in half using a scissors. Then we use a 12.5 inch square grid, a rotary cutter, and we start making the shirts into equal squares. We also cut the interfacing, which is the stability fabric iron to the back of the shirts to make the shirts more manageable. After that, we will iron the interfacing to the back of each shirt to square to make them equal in weight and stretch ability. Next it's time to, so the shirts into four columns. Four columns is the amount of shirts needed for the lap size, slash throw size blanket. We will so each square together to make up the columns. After that we will so all four columns of items together to make the front of your quilt. Depending on the size, we may add a border of fabric to add some inches all around. Following. It will be timed to so the batting, which is the material inside a quilt that gives it the cozy weight to the front of your quilt. Finally, we get to sewing the backside fabric onto the quilt. And the last step, create and add the binding. When it is all done, you will have a beautiful memory quilt. The front made up of all of those special items. The batting and backing and border and binding, all joined together to make a remarkable art piece and cozy blanket. What's next? Take a look at the supplies in the video and the attached list. Gather your items and let the organizing begin. 3. Prepping: Supplies: Since this class will work well with someone who already has some sewing experience, you might already have a lot of the items on this list. Everything on this list will continue to get used as you continue on sewing or quoting projects. But the cost for the actual memory comes down to these items, the shirts which you already have, so they aren't really a cost. The thread, the interfacing, the batting, the fabric which is used for the border, the backing of the blanket and the trimer binding. If you're on a budget, buying in bulk can really help. Plus, your fabric or hobby shop probably have a lot of sales and I always keep an eye out for those coupons and buy ahead. I really liked buying flannel in the summer because that's when the best sales are. I stock up, then I also stock up on batting and interfacing whenever I can. The list is also attached as a PDF. In this lesson, you'll need a basic home sewing machine. Nothing too fancy. I have 21 is just a regular singer competence sewing machine that I got many years ago. And then I have the singer heavy-duty, which has been very helpful for some bigger projects. It moves a little faster, which I also like. This project can be done with any basic sewing machine. You'll need an iron and ironing board or any surface that you can iron on parchment paper, which I use when I'm ironing the interfacing to the cotton t-shirts as protection for the iron and the fabrics. You could also use a towel instead of parchment paper, you'll need a cutting mat. Good pair of scissors, a rotary cutter and blades. And what are very helpful, our seemed cutters, small scissors or slippers, which are just very helpful when you're selling anyway, they'll need the square grids, the 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch for sure, and the 14 inch by 14 inch square is very helpful. Also helpful our metal rulers, the long one is 36 inches and it's terrific when I'm cutting material, I really like having the metal ruler for that. Parking tools like fabric pencils or Taylor's chalk are always useful. You'll have to get a walking foot for your specific machine. So I have the singer walking foot and I have the Singer machine. And this basically this Even Feed Foot, feeds multiple layers of fabric through the machine without puckering or bunching. So it's great when it comes to the quilting part of the lesson. Needles for your machine, definitely quilting needles, thread and bobby pins. You can get any color. Colored threads are always fun, especially for the visible top stitches, but it's always, always can go with white and you never have a problem with that. Pins and sewing clips, which are just a great sewing tool, interfacing fabric, which is shown here in a small bolt. I bought it in bulk, but you can buy it like you buy fabric and yards and basting spray, which is an adhesive that's used to hold your fabrics in place before you sew them altogether. In the quilting process of the blanket. This is the interfacing I liked the best. It's the appellant white shirt, Taylor feasible, 950 F. It's a little thicker than some of the others. I can definitely feel the textured side. That's the side that will go against my t-shirt. Every one of talons. Interfacing comes with the sheet that explains what fabrics, a specific interfacing works best with Iron temperature duration for the iron on the materials. And you'll see you'll have certain favorites. You might migrate towards the ones that are on sale. Or if you're working with a certain type of fabric, you'll find the one that's best for your fabric. Like I said on here, it does explain what each one is best for the batting, which is basically the inside of the quilt. I like cotton, but it does come in other materials like polyester wool or bamboos sometimes used. And you can buy it. Here I'm BY, I'd bought it as in bulk as a huge role. You can buy it in yards like fabric, or they also come in pre-packaged bundles. You can buy for a baby size quilt, a twin full kings. So whatever your needs are, if you don't have space to store it or you can't deal with cutting up a huge piece of batting. And it's really easy to buy. There are three areas that need fabric for this memory quilt project. In the throw blanket size, you can use the same material in all three areas if you want, but I'm choosing three different fabrics. The white cotton, which I will use for the binding of the blanket. I sometimes call it The trim, the mint green flannel, which I'll use for the border, and the red monkey dot, which is a fleece valorem type of very cozy and soft, stretchy fabric. I will use this on the backside of the blanket, the amounts needed and this will be on the supply list attached to this lesson, are interfacing seven yards, binding, 2.5 yards, order, 2.5 yards. Backing. Depending on the width of your fabric, you may need more or less, but I will say roughly five to six yards. I always buy a little extra fabric when shopping because I have had the scenario. Why bought too little? Then when I went back to the store, it was already gone. What's next? You're gonna get your shirts and special memorabilia and we're going to organize them into piles. Then we're going to cut the shirts and half the front side on the backside. And we'll lay them out in a rough layout. You're going to start to see this project come together. 4. Prepping: Organize & Layout: In this getting organized class, we're going to take the shirts and sort them into various groupings or piles. Cut the shirts in half, so the shirt is in two pieces, front and the back. Organize a rough layout of the blanket using a large workspace. We will put the shirts into four columns with about five shirts and each column for our design of the nap sized blanket. Then finally, we will take a picture with a rough layout. This will serve as a reference. I'd love to see everyone's pictures uploaded to the project section. I realize that this class has a lot of steps, but that is because it is the foundation of the project and where we begin to see your blanket come to life. Let's get this project started. I've got my pile of shirts. I've got my 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch grid by also have a 14 inch by 14 inch, which is not required but could be helpful. And my scissors. Let's take these items. Let's go find a big work area to spread out. And I liked the floor. You could use a dining room table and the area where you can spread out and make some piles and do some layout. Come on. I wasn't joking when I said I like to work on the floor. There's tons of space. You can't beat it. Anyway. Have my pile of shirts, and I'm going to sort them into three piles. The first pile is going to have shirts that are two-sided. That means they have something on the front end, something on the back. The next pile, just one-sided shirts, either something on the front or something on the back. The last pile is for shirts that have a logo that's bigger than the 12.5% by 12.5 inch grid that I like to use. That's why the 14 inch grid comes in handy. Those are my three piles. Now I have my three piles of shirts. There was only one shirt that had an oversized logo on the back, bigger than the 12.5 by 12.5 inch grid. So I'm gonna save that. It's going to be one of my specialty squares. I had about three shirts that only had one side of information. That's easy. And all these had something on the front and the back. In some cases that could count as two shirts or two squares, which be really handy if you don't have a lot of shirts. Other times you have to make a choice. Which part of the shirt am I going to use? The front or the back? Sometimes my clients make requests on what sides of shirts they want. But a shirt like this. The main information is on the front. But I liked this little x that's on the back. And I noticed there was a few shirts with this. I'm going to save these x's and maybe make up a specialty square later. Next we're going to take the shirts and cut them into front side, back side, just cut right around the perimeter of the shirt. Now it's time to cut what I called the perimeter of the shirt. And what I meant by that was basically all around the edge, the shoulder, armpit, down the side. Let's start cutting. If there's a seam on the shirt, it's really easy to follow the same line which there is on this one. But if there isn't, just as easily follow where the shirts been folded. Go. Once. One side of the shirt. That's a sudden going to use in the next side, which was the back. There wasn't anything on this back. I see all the parts of the project until I'm done, just in case we need some pink somewhere as a filler. I have this nice clean pink background. If you are working with a child size shirt and you find that it's narrower than the 12.5 inch grid. There are some solutions. You can cut down the back of the shirt and have this should open like a booklet. This case of course, there's something on the back, so I couldn't do that. Or you can let's say it's this narrow. You have some space on the sides. You can always so read on filler to make up the difference. Or you can use a smaller grid if all of your shirts are child size, that might be a great solution. So I just cut one side of this shirt and I was about to cut the sleeve. And I saw this little note here. Now I don't know if that's important or not. Since I'm making this as a gift, but instead of cutting through that beat and B, I'm going to save the arm. Is it bigger piece? That way? If I want to add it somewhere, I can. I didn't ruin it. Some of those things do pop up while you're cutting. You'll see stuff you didn't realize was there, especially if it's not your shirt, you don't know all the details. So pay attention. Here I am back on the floor and we're gonna get started on the rough layout of your blanket. I have these little x's that I mentioned earlier. I'm going to make specialty square out of them. Perhaps if I have room and I'm going to push those to the side for now. I also have this one shirt that I mentioned was a little bit larger than the 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch group. And there's a few ways to deal with this. Dealing with oversized logos and patterns has a few solutions. If you have more than one shirt that is oversized, I suggest keeping the oversized shirts all in one column of your design and making all of those shirts in that column, the 14 inch width instead of the 12 inch width. Another way is to tilt the shirt so it is at a slight angle. This bys and interests. So for the logo width and creates a nice angle that add some dimension. This is a technique I've utilized quite a lot in my memory, quilt making. Additionally, you can turn the logo completely sideways or vertical. As long as the width remains 12.5 inches, the length can be as long as you need. This also creates a fun layout. Speaking of fun layouts, you can also not use the column technique that this class is demonstrating and do more of a collage type of blanket. You can just build different size squares and shapes of shirts along the way. Lastly, what I'm using in this blanket is the slight trim approach. I will merely trim off some of the edges of the design so that it will fit into the 12.5 inch grid. I won't take off anything that takes away from the main message or meaning. But for this shirt, I will be cutting off the word Xavier. However, the school name of Xavier is all over this blanket and me editing it out here won't hurt. So this will be a little bit of a stream of conscious process while I think through and try different things for this blanket. I noticed there's quite a bit of black. So I'm going to start by putting black shirt and each of the top four corners. A black in the four corners gets me started and sets my boundaries. Remember, we will be making four columns with about five shirts in each column. Keep in mind, I did not have 20 shirts to start. But between fronts and backs of the shirts, I will fill the space. This is the puzzle part of this process, and it's good to keep in mind that any space can be managed somehow. If you don't have four same colored shirts for the four corners, you can use two reds and diagonal corners and to whites and the other corners. Or you can use all sport jersey numbers in the corners. Be creative and try different things. Remember, this is a rough layout and nothing is wrong. Then I will add a gray shirt to the bottom of the second column and the top of the third column. Notice that my gray shirt on the bottom of the second column is that seemingly oversized one. Originally, I thought I was gonna do something different with it. I called it a specialty square. But now I have decided to incorporate it into a regular spot in a column as a 12.5 inch square. I will divide up the two shirts that said a place for you. One in the middle of the first column and one in the middle of the fourth column. The green was the only one of its kind. So it will be a lovely accent color wherever it lands. I will also place the red and the teal shirts as accent colors. And once again, there really is no bad spot. I have three pink shirts, so I will spread them out, each in a different column. Next, I will add my two white shirts with what open spaces I have left. Finally, as you can see, I have about two spots in column three. In that area. I'm going to use the x's and other bits that I saved to make that specialty square. Don't forget to take a picture and print it out if you can. You're really going to find it handy as a reference tool. Congratulations on finishing up the getting organized class. Look at all your accomplishments. You've sorted your shirts into piles. You cut the shirts and half. You organized a rough layout. You took a picture, and now you will go and share your picture in the project section. Next up, we will start cutting your shirts and the interfacing into squares. Bring your pile of shorts. Interfacing the square grids and the rotary cutter. See you there. 5. BONUS!: Hi there. Memory Quilt students. It's Zoe, and I'm interrupting myself to let you know about a special offer I have for my students. And I know you're my student because you're watching my class right now. At the time when I filmed and edited this course, I didn't have my one on one session set up, but I do now, and I'm really excited to offer this to you. My one on one session is a session where you and I will meet virtually and go over the layout of your blanket. Sometimes when you're really close to these projects, it's hard to come up with a good layout or understand color balance and words and different parts of the shirts that can be used. The shirts are the items. Anyway, that's where this session is perfect. Once you and I meet, you'll have a beautiful layout, and the rest of the project should flow pretty easily. Honestly, I've made so many of these quilts, and sometimes the most challenging part is this first step. So I want to help you so that you can carry on with your project. Anyway, my students, that's you get a 30% discount on my one on one session, offered through Skillshare and Super peer. Go to my profile page. Use your code, sign up. And I can't wait to see you and see all the items you've collected and work with you to get a beautiful layout so that your blanket can get going. 6. Working: It's Cutting Time!: It's cutting day. We're going to cut our shirts into equal squares. And our interfacing into the same equal squares. Interfacing is a special fabric which is used to make certain parts of a garment more stable. It is used for stiffening, reinforcing, and shape retention. It's the fabric we will iron on to the backside of our T-shirt squares. Here are some examples of stretch cotton with and without interfacing. As you can see, the side with interfacing has a lot more structure and control. Whereas the side without seems much more stretchy and loose. Interfacing is important because it gives the same structure to a lot of these items that have different materials, thread counts, stretch ability. It's like a straight jacket for the shirt and makes every square equal and easy to work with. Cutting is one of my favorite parts of the project. I love getting into the cutting zone. You can listen to a podcast, Audible, or talk on the phone with a friend on speaker phone, of course. It's also when you start to see the project really come to take shape. That sad pile of shirts starts to turn into an actual blanket right before your very eyes. There are some fabrics that are worth spending a little extra special attention on. These are fabrics that are very thin. Fabrics that are soft stretch cotton or fabrics that are athletic sport material. Once these fabrics get cut, they seem sensitive and tend to recoil or shrink or contract. So I always cut those squares and intro to bigger by using my 14 inch grid, knowing that once I attached the interfacing, I will trim it down to the correct square size. Like I mentioned, some shirts can be challenging. They have seemed, and collars and armpits and V-max. These presents some challenges when cutting them in squares. This can be resolved with filler fabric later in the process. Just cut the shirt shapes to the best of your ability. And later we can go back in and fix it up. We've got our grid, a rotary cutter, Oliver, our shirts that have already been cut in half. And our interfacing material. Here we are. I have my cutting mat, my shirt, and my grid placed over my 12.5 inch by 12 and a half-inch grid. And of course my rotary cutter. I'm going to start by just centering my logo as best as I can in the middle of my grid. Now, of course, there's only so much distance from the top of the logo to the neck line, which often happens with a lot of shirts if the logo goes up high. So you do your best you can with what space you have. I'm just going to make sure that all the way around we've got even as possible. So from the top that's about two inches and the bottom, it's about two inches to two and a quarter. I use might use this. Cast your net as my straightening line of coarse cotton over time stretches and distorts a little. So it looks like I'm a little crooked, but the logo was straight and that's what we'll count when it's cut. And on the left side, let's see, I've got an inch and a half here and note one inch there. So I might even it out. Once again, trying to center, doing the best I can. Whatever you do will work. Okay. I'm ready to cut, get my rotary cutter and make sure it was closed. And now it's open. You always want to close it because you can really hurt yourself. It's left open on a table. And I start cutting. Go a little bit past each corner. Make sure your shirt is smoothed out before you start cutting. I forgot to mention that, but that's important. Okay. Close it, put it down, peel away, hoops, the corner had a threat. Cut it. Sometimes a really sharp blade will help with those threads that are holding on. Okay, here we go. First. Many squares. Looking good, Always keep the scraps until the project is done. You never know. So I have a scrap bag put that there, fold this up, moving on. Here's a live example of what I was talking about with the tilt. This word is coming very close to the edge of my grid. Now, it can work because like I said, if you just cut off a little, you can still read the word. But if you tilt this a little, you get a little more room. Now of course, I'll be cutting into the armpit and the color the other armpit with some seams. But that'll be a really good example for me to show you how to fix those later. I'm going to cut this shirt on the angle. And you will see that it works really nicely. Cut off some of those stragglers. Okay? Now you can see that this square will be in the blanket like this, which is cool. I'm going to put red filler there. I think I'll be okay with the seam lines. Sometimes the seam lines can buckle and be a little weird. But we will get to that later. But now you can see how I'm tilting and still look really cool. This is our oversized shirt. Remember that the design was slightly bigger than the 12.5 inch grid. But since it was the only one in this shirt that was over-sized, and I'm feeling that in this case, I can cut off some of the information without losing the message will be okay. So like I said, Xavier is all over the shirt. So the X there, if I cut off the word, Xavier, will still be okay. On the left side and the right side or the hands. So maybe I keep one hand and just skewed to the left a little. Or I could do the other way. But then I'm starting to really cut into those logos. So I'm gonna go over here. And then on top, just a teeny bit of that. Then I'm going to start cutting. Keeping in mind I'm going to have a quarter inch seam line. So for the exam we'll try and go as close quarter inches. I can give a quarter inch on the left side. When I'm ready to cut, peel away my excess. And there I have my square. Here's an example of a shirt that is actually more of a rectangle shape. It's longer than 12.5 inches. The width is fine, but the length is longer. So I'm going to cut it that way. I place my grid giving some border at the top, keeping my margin around the edge. And I'm going to cut. Then when I do is I peel back. So I can see I'm going to slide this down, wanting it up. So I can just extend my square. Keep my same width as best as I can. I'm finished cutting. Okay, So that is not a square, it's more of a rectangle, but it will still fit in the column because it's still 12.5 inches wide. Here's an example of a sport material shirt that sort of very thin wicking material and sometimes when you cut it, it does contract. So I'm gonna do what I suggested earlier and use the bigger grid size to cut this one. I'm going to use the 14 inch by 14 inch. That way if a shrinks up a little, It's still going to fit on my 12 inch 12.5 inch interfacing square root. Okay. I don't know that a trunk up but better safe than sorry. And I mentioned and I mentioned that I'll use the interfacing that's cut and the 12.5 inches. And when I run it, I will iron it on the back and I will just trim off the side. I'm going to cut this x in a big square, even though I know it's gonna be a much smaller square. Just while I'm here cutting in my assembly line, I'll get it done. It's time to start cutting my interfacing and have my grid, my rotary cutter, and my bolt of interfacing. So I just start by opening it up. Let it up. I'm going to cut my square. There is my square. I have this tail bit of the fabric. And I will also cut that. Because this will definitely get used either on those small specialty squares. You can double up filler fabric. There's always a use and nothing gets wasted. This was a great lesson because we cut all of our shirts and all of our interfacing, the same amount of each. We went over interfacing, challenging fabrics and special shapes. In the next class, we will iron the interfacing onto the backs of the shirts. You will need your short squares. You're interfacing squares, your iron, your onboard, and parchment paper or a towel. See you there. 7. Working: Iron It Out!: This lesson shows how to take the square cut shirts, iron the interfacing onto the back of the shirts and see the structure of the blanket come together. You need to have an iron and ironing board, some parchment paper or towel. Your cut shirts and the interfacing. Oh, some good music. Of course. Here I am at the ironing board. I have my parchment paper down, then the interfacing rough side up, then the shirt square, which I line up perfectly with the top corners. I smooth it out nicely. Then parchment paper again. Then iron. Iron is set a medium and I will do solid 15 seconds over each area or a little more if it needs to adhere better. That's one side and you can see it already beginning to look and feel more structured. Then I turn it over and repeat, on the backside. That looks awesome, fully structured square. And it will be really easy to attach to another shirt in the same column. Here's the specialty square, the red one that we tilted so that the word could fit. And you can see that the color is not making up the complete square. So I'm just going to iron on the interfacing as if it was a complete square. And later I'll go back in with some red filler fabric and fill in that color. Here's that bit of interfacing that I call the tail before and some red that I cut from the same red shirt rectangle. I'm just going to iron those two together and that's what I'll use as the filler fabric. On the corner of the big square, there was a large logo or an iron on the shirt. It's important to pay attention to the fact that the iron, the hot iron doesn't heat and peel off the ink that was printed on the shirt. And here's the x I'll be using for that specialty square with some of the other x's and small parts. Even though I'm only using a small area of the shirt, I will still iron on interfacing to the whole piece because later I may need some gray filler fabric. And then I'll already have it ready to go. Confession time. On the pink shirt, I realized a piece of fuzz got caught between the interfacing and the shirt. If the shirt was black, I may never have noticed. But now it's going to bug me in this case. Luckily, I was still early in the learning process so I can just peel it back and then retired. Now that you have your shirts iron to their interfacing and you've got some filler fabric. You can begin to see that your shirts are taking on their new life as a blanket, you should be feeling pretty excited. Remember that photo, I told you to take in print. You can use that now as a guide for when you're laying your shirts back in their grid. Sometimes you forget where we had them originally, but this is a great reference. After you lay them out again, take another picture because you'll really see the development of the blanket come together. If you're making a blanket for someone, it's a great opportunity to send them another picture so they can make any adjustments before you start the sewing process. Here's the blanket laid out again after the shirts have their interfacing, it's really coming together. I have a few specialty squares, these two where I will iron the red and teal filler fabrics, where the color is at the corners. This other larger square slash rectangle area that's much more of a collage of the various x's and leftover bits. And that becomes almost like its own little mini quilts. Within the next step, we're going to start selling up the columns of shirts with our sewing machine will be sewing four columns with about five shirts each, which you'll need. Your sewing machine, bobbin, thread, needles and pins. This is so exciting. 8. Sewing: Columns: So here's my blanket laid out on the floor really coming together, looking much more structured. I'm going to have to rely on the corner of that x. I can see it killing off from the interfacing. I've got my two specialty squares that I'm going to use my filler fabric technique to fill in that, those corners. And I've got the other specialty square, which is more like a rectangle, which I will also get two. Now if we take a look at the length of this quilt, column four is definitely the longest. So I'm going to need to deal with that somehow. There's a few ways to deal with that. Number one is C, the white shirt has an inch on top and a few inches on the bottom that are extra. So if I just fold those under and it brings up the whole length of the column a few inches. Just helpful because now in relation to the other three columns, I can easily fill that in with filler fabric. I'm going to start with column for when I start sewing, I'll start at the top. And so those first two together and make my way down. Let's go. The first thing I will do is trim off the top and bottom of the senior nights white shirt. Then I will pin the square above the white one in the column. Moving from top to bottom to the one below it in the column, I will pin them each facing each other. So a quarter inch seam iron and then reinforce with a top stitch. Then I keep moving down the line of the column until all of the shirts are sewn together in that column. You can see column four is all sewn together with the top stitches and it has shrunk in its length. As I mentioned before. Before, we can move on and finish the other three columns. We have specialty squares and each of those columns. So let's head to the next lesson where we will go over those types of squares. 9. Sewing: Specialty Squares: In this lesson, we're going to review two types of specialty squares. These are the squares that need some extra attention and some labor of love to make them fit into the grid of our memory. Quote, take a picture and share the before and after. It's always fun to see the transformation. We will start with the teal green Clever shirt that had a neck line and made this shirt miss a part of its corner. First, I will trim off the extra corner of interfacing. Then I will pin the piece of matching fabric that has interfacing on it face-to-face with the main piece. Next, I will, so the pieces together. After I will iron the same flat with an iron ore in this case, I can finger press it since it's so small of an area. Then add the top stitch. Finally, I will take the grid and match it up and trim off the excess so the square is complete with the filler fabric. I will do the same exact thing for the red shirt that had two corners that needed filler fabric attached to make up the square. The next area on the blanket is that portion that had almost its own mini quilt within the quilt, this specialty square, I'll start out by measuring what size I am working with. The length is 24 inches and we already know the width is 12.5. I look at the balance and swaps and pieces around. So the two mini black squares are separated. I have three rows, so they'll each be about eight inches in length. I will start with the middle row of this mini quilt and just measure and tweak by folding and seeing how the squares will make up a row. Always making sure the logo stay as centered as possible. First, I saw the pink and green pieces together. Then I attach the red piece to the pink and green piece. After I use my 12.5 inch grid to cut off the excess on the left and right side. Then I do the same with the gray and black pieces. I use the grid to make sure the space is used in the logos are centered. See how nicely they look next to the pink, red, and green row. I did. I continue with the final row of the mini quilts. Eventually i so all three rows together to make up the entire specialty square, or in this case, rectangle of the blanket. Now the specialty squares are all done and I finished sewing them into their respective columns. Once all four columns are done, we will move on to the next lesson where we will, so the columns together. Don't forget to share your before and after pictures of your specialty squares. It's really fun to see how these evolve. 10. Sewing: Joining Columns: In this lesson of sewing the four columns together, we're going to start by so in columns 12 together, columns 34 together. And then so in 12 together with 34. The first thing I do is trim off any straggling threads I have. Then I'm gonna take column two and light on top of column one so they're facing each other. I'm going to line them up very evenly at the top, all the way down, so their edges line up. Then I'm going to pin them from top to bottom, always checking to make sure they still lined up. One thing I like to do is take my ruler and my fabric pencil and draw a quarter-inch line for myself as a guide. Since the t-shirt edges aren't all exactly the same, It's hard to get a straight line without some sort of guidance. And I really liked the technique of giving myself that pencil line. So I go all the way down with my ruler than I, so it iron it. And then I do my top stitch. I repeat the same process for my other two columns. And then eventually I saw them altogether. So we lined up columns 12 at the edges and corners. We pin them, we drew a guideline, we sold them, we iron them and then did is top stitch and repeated. I can see the bottom of my blanket is not completely even and this is where I'm going to add some filler fabric to help that. Next steps, we're going to add our border. We'll take some measurements, do some basic math, cut that border fabric so that border fabric. 11. Sewing: Adding A Border: Before we get started on the border, we have to make sure the quilt front or quilt top has the same flush edge all the way around. So along the bottom of the quilt, I will trim off the extra pieces so there's a straight line across. Currently, my quilt top measures 48 inches by 61 inches. In order for it to be the throat or nap size, the dimensions should be 54 inches by 78 inches. So I have to increase the length and width on each side to get to those numbers. The width needs six inches to get to 54. So that works out to three inches on each. The left and right sides. The length needs 17 inches to get to 78 inches. So that works out to 8.5 inches on each the top and bottom sides. So I take my fabric and I cut two strips of three inches and two strips of 8.5 inches. My border fabric was 2.5 yards long. So easily makes the 78 inches in length that I need for the sides. But if I had smaller piece of fabric, I could always join pieces together to make the length I needed. I pin ISO iron and I do my top stitch for all four sides. First making sure I have attached my walking foot onto the sewing machine as we are starting to pass more layers of fabric through the machine. Now, when the border has been attached, you can see it is really coming together nicely. The border is the perfect frame for the blanket and the mint green fabric complements the pale green t-shirt included in the blanket. What's next? Take a picture and shared in the projects and resources section, we'd love to see how you're doing now that it's really coming together. Next up, we're going to attach the batting, that's the sandwich part of the quilt. We're going to need the batting, the basting sprite and your sewing machine. 12. Quilting: Adding The Batting: In this lesson, we're going to measure and cut the batting. We're going to set it in place with the basting spray. And then we're going to sell it in place using vertical and horizontal grid lines as guides. Once the front of your quilt is complete, it's time to add the padding. The padding is the inside of the quilt that makes it cozy and waited. It goes quilt top batting backing, also known as a quote sandwich. So this is my technique for adding the quilt top to the batting. You have access or experience with a long arm machines. Makes quilting bigger projects much easier. But on a home machine that can get a little challenging with all the weight and materials. So this is my technique for making sure that batting is secured to the quilt top. And in a way that's really manageable on a home machine. First, we need to cut our batting to size, especially if we had purchased it in bulk or as a large piece. My bad and came folded in half. So I know my length is fine. I just have to trim off some to get to the correct width. I cut at the arrows, seeing that the approximate 12 inches will make the width correct. I will lay it out smoothly under my quilt top. Then I will trim off any excess around the edges. I already have vertical lines in place that were sewn as the top stitches from the earlier lesson. And then we'll use those as guides for my next sewn lines. The lines that will be attaching the quilt top to the batting. Other lines I'm going to so now I want to so five vertical lines using my quilt grid and border fabric lines as the reference. Since I'm starting at the top, I'll use my Taylor's chalk to extend the guides and make white lines as referenced along the top portion of the quilt. And along the bottom. Then I'm going to make sure my quilt top is in place and use the basting spray. I will peel back about half the blanket and spray the adhesive. Then I'll smooth it down slowly and methodically in place, making sure there's no bumps. If there are, it's easy enough to peel back and reapply. After I've sewn the first three vertical lines, I will go back and spray the other half the blanket in place. Then I'll roll up my quilt so it's easy to manage and make my way to the sewing machine. Don't forget to make sure you're walking foot is installed using my white lines and the grid lines from the blanket as referenced, I'm sowing lines to the opposite of what is already there. So if the pre-existing line is on the right eye, so on the left and vice versa. Once all the vertical lines have been sown, it is time for the horizontal lines. Some of the blankets grid has continuous rows and that will be easy to follow. Other times I may have to stop and start when the rho is not a straight line that has more of a step. On the left. I can start at the very end of the blanket or where the row starts. If I start all the way to the edge, I would want to draw those chalk lines again as guidance. Again, I saw opposite of the existing top sich already there. I may have to move my sewing machine to move the needle to the opposite line. I want to make sure the Batting is attached to the quilt front at every 12 inches or less, which is usually what is specified by the batting instructions. So I double-check that every square on my quote has been attached to the batting at the top, bottom, left and right sides. Then I know my batting is well secured to my quilt. In this class, we measured and cut our batting. We laid under our quilt top, trimmed around the edges to make a perfect fit. We base it it with the adhesive glue so it stayed in place. We sold it in vertical and horizontal lines using our quilt top as our guide. And now we're ready to put the backing on. Next up, we'll get our backing fabric, will measure and cut it to size, will get it in place, it, and move on. 13. Quilting: Adding The Backing: To attach the backing, we will need to measure and cut the backing fabric. Then we will set it in place. You can use basting spray and, or pins. Finally, we will so it, depending on the length and width of your fabric, you may need to so two pieces together to make up the correct dimension of your blanket. If I have to do that, I'd like to have the same go down the middle of the blanket on the backside. In this case, my red monkey dot fabric was 57 inches wide and my blanket is 54 inches. So that means one piece will work without having to. So two pieces together. As long as I purchased enough for the length which I did, I will lay the fabric down under my quilt top and pin it in place across the top, then I will. So along the horizontal guidelines were the border method, t-shirts, squares. I'm going to use a zigzag stitch because this is a stretchy fabric and the zigzag works well for materials like that. But if you're using cotton, you can use a regular stitch. Since the batting was sewn so well to the quilt top. I'm only doing two rows of stitching to attach the backing to the rest of the blanket. Of course, it will be sown when the binding is attached and well secured in place that way too. In the next lesson, we'll go over the final step which is adding the binding, I sometimes called the trim to the quilt, go over some other binding techniques, will cut iron and make our binding. And then we'll pin it in place. 14. Quilting: Binding & Done!: In this class, we're going to add the binding to your quilt. I sometimes call it the trim. I'm also gonna go over some other binding techniques. We're going to cut iron and make the binding, and then we're going to pin it in place. Binding is the last stage of the quilt. This sort of like the crust on that quilt sandwich. Here's a sample of some store-bought bias tape or quote binding that comes like this. It is the one-inch tape and has been pre ironed and folded into the correct shape to wrap around the front and back of the blanket. The first binding technique is probably the most common. You lay the binding down so it in place on one side. Then fold and flip it over to the backside and sew it on that side. It creates a tighter, more compact and neat binding is usually done with one long piece of fabric that can make its way around the entire blanket. And there are techniques for managing the corners. The second technique involves the backing fabric of the blanket, wrapping itself around to the front. It is cut at least two inches bigger than the blanket size, then it is folded over and sewn into place. This is a really easy and fast way of doing binding and looks great because it integrates the back with the front. For the next technique, number three, let's use this mini quilt as a sample. I had the mini quote on the left and I have the backing fabric on the right. Please ignore the creases in the backing fabric. I face the front together and pin around the perimeter, leaving an opening which I will mark for myself with Eclipse. Then I saw around the edges. And it's nice to do a curved edge here that helps with the corner bulk. Later, I trim the edges, then flip it right side out. I saw the opening together while also adding the top stitch all around the blanket. And there it is. This is fast and easy. You can also have batting or no batting in this version. The final technique and the one we will use for this class project involves taking four pieces of binding strips and attaching them around each side of the blanket. There is also a technique I use to keep the corners tidy and finished. My fabric, like my border fabric, is long enough that I can cut four strips and know that they will be long enough for the longest two sides, the lengths of the blanket. So my two inch border will actually be an eight inch strip of fabric that I will fold in half and then fold again into itself. I will cut my strips. Then I will iron them all, each in half. Then the two halves in again. And then I will reinforce with the iron again so they are neat and crisp. Instead of the one-inch binding I showed is a sample before. I'm going to make a thicker binding. I'm doing this because I liked the way it looks. And B, because when using thick fabrics, like the mint green flannel and that red monkey dot for the backing. I want to make sure I have a binding that easier engulfs the edges of the blanket without worrying about bunching. Bunch she can happen when you have a lot of thick fabrics. Then I will pin them in place. I always leave an inch or two on the corner. I'm starting with the longest sides, the left and right sides of the blanket. I clip and pin them in place. Before I do the second side, I may want to sell my personal label onto the backing. Before I forget. I usually use some fabric glue or a pin to hold it in place and then sew it down. If I forget, then I just have to sew it onto all of the layers of the blanket, which is not a big deal. But it's nice if I can remember earlier in the project. I pin my second side, then roll and so I trim up the extra tail for the length, so does flush with the edge. Then I pin the top and bottom binding. For the corners. I leave a two-inch tail again and they do a fold. While it is opened. I fold one edge in and then the main piece folded over it. I'm careful about folding and tucking everything in neatly. I also cut off a triangle piece of fabric on the inside of the flap to help with the bulk. Then I use a lot of clips and pins to get it secured in place before sewing. I do the same for each corner. Once the binding is sown all the way around, I often do a second line of stitching for reinforcement and aesthetics. I cut off all stray pieces of threads and guess what? You are done. Congratulations you did it. I'm so proud of you. This is not an easy project. It takes a lot of time, a lot of commitment, a lot of patients. And here you are. You made your first memory of quilts. Well, I really want them to see those pictures, so please remember to share them. I can't wait to see what you've done.