Me + A Craft Night =

InSpIrEd!!! When I was living in Philadelphia, my friend, Jill, would have me, along, with some other friends, over at her house for the occasional "Craft Night". One of the nights Jill pulled out some of her fabric books that she was collecting. One of them was an Anna Maria Horner book, which I had never heard of before, but fell instantly in love with after thumbing through just the first few pages. Needless to say I found this picture of a simple quilt that was filled with dark fabrics and then bound with a bright fabric that made the quilt pop. I absolutely loved it and thought that if I ever got the courage to make a quilt someday, that I would make one like that.

Well, in preparation for our move to Utah, being the de-junkster, that I am, was going through my storage bins and throwing out what I didn't want to move with. I always go through my old dance bin. Inside I have kept several things. I still have a ton of leotards from high school and college that I just can't part with...maybe because of the amount of sweat and hard work that was done in them, but below them also was a stack of shirts that I couldn't part with either. These shirts were only worn but a few times, and were kept for just sheer memory sake. We all had them, and some maybe have them still. I love looking at them, but got so annoyed by the fact that I would place them back in a bin every time. That's when ding, ding, ding...the idea came...Justin's mom had made him a huge quilt of all his shirts that he had saved from soccer camps, jerseys, etc. while he was on his mission. It is amazing! So I thought I could do the same, and hopefully find some great fabrics to go with them. Luckily Justin's mom was more than willing to help me, as this was going to be my very first quilt...and voila, here it is!!!

The front

The Back

This is a dance T-shirt from my high school days as a Jefferson Dancer. Justin's mom helped me start with all the cutting of the t-shirts and strips, and sewing them all together. She was the perfect teacher. She made me do all the cutting and sewing so that I could really learn, and guided me when I had questions. She helped iron all the sown pieces flat and laid them out. She was a huge support.

This is a T-shirt from college when I was a dancer in The Light of The World. The actual quilting I had done by the talented Shellie Blake in my old ward. She is amazing. I love the pattern she did over it, and it really shows up on the darker shirts. She taught me a ton about quilting from squaring it up to how to make and sew the binding.

I learned that fabric is forgiving, thank goodness, and that the key is to measure up along the seams, to keep all the strips and squares lined up. I was so afraid it would come out lopsided!

The actual binding probably took me the longest, because you have to finish it by hand, and I was trying to teach myself how to round the corners, which I still am not sure if I know how to do or not. But I love it, and it was a lot more fun than I thought. I might just have to make another one. Thanks again to Justin's mom for all her help!