Work Shirt Quilt

The quilt was my main large project this year.

I started with a pile of work shirts.  They were all well worn and had been washed many times, so were lovely and soft.

I used scissors first to cut out the main areas of the shirts to be used.  Then cut out pieces 15cm square x 225 with a rotary cutter and self healing mat. 

I had two sets of fabric in dark and fine striped so I used them for the main pattern.  Each 3 x 3 square had 5 dark/fine striped pieces in the corners and middle.  Then 4 different colours for the remaining spaces.  I placed these in the same space on each block (I don’t like random patterns on things like this). 

Someone pointed out when it was finished that I should have worked out from the centre so the pattern was mirrored but I worked top to bottom.

Then pieced the 9 piece squares alternately in rows of 5, then joined the rows, ironing seams as I went.  By the end it was quite heavy, even though it is fine material.

The square sewing was completed on the boat during our summer trip, on a tiny Janome sewing machine and using a small IKEA table top ironing board (which was only used for sewing projects). 

See www.fleurofpendle.blogspot.co.uk for more information on our trip.

I used wool wadding in the centre which I bought from ‘Immanuel Fabrics’ in Burnley (a hidden gem of a store with prices starting at £1 per metre).  They also had 72” wide duvet cotton which was used for the backing.

Using the craft club floor, myself and Annette pinned the cotton to the carpet, then laid on the wadding (which must be washed, as it shrank by a third and had to be pieced with zigzag stitches).  Then finally the patchwork top.  We used safety pins to pin it together and then rolled the whole thing to take it home.

I used elastic bands to prevent the rolled ends from unwinding.

Then using a ‘Walking Foot’ (which lifts to allow the fabric to move and not bunch up) on my home machine I wrestled the quilt through.  I stitched ‘in the ditch’ between the squares on the seam.  I only quilted horizontally as it looked well quilted once the whole thing was complete.  Starting in the middle and quilting half at once.  Quilting both ways could risk puckering.

I decided to use the backing as the edging by folding it forward, machine stitching the edges and mitring the corners by hand afterwards.

The finished Quilt.

It was supposed to be a light weight summer quilt, but it has turned out quite heavy, but very cosy.