What a fun day today with my niece!  She called me recently and asked if I’d make her a quilt with the T-shirts that she’d saved from High School band competitions, as well as some others that were special to her from High School days.  Well, since she reads my blog every day even though she’s not a quilter, how could I possibly say no?  Of course the fact that I love her dearly and she treasures every quilt I’ve made her also helps.  For those of you non-quilters out there who would love to have quilts made for you?  Here’s a little advice.  Just between you and me.  Ooooo and ahhhh a lot over your quilter friend’s works of art.  I mean really.  Make a big huge deal about it.  Quilters love to make quilts for those who will love them and cherish them.  Don’t tell them I told you.  It will just be our little secret.  And it’s imperative that you are very sincere in your flattery of the said quilter’s quilts.  Quilters are very smart and will know if you’re just pulling their leg to get a quilt of your own.  By the way – if you are my non-quilting friend, do not try this on me.  Because it is our little secret I will be onto you like hot butter on a biscuit.  So don’t even try.  Just sayin’.

This is Janna.  She and I worked together to cut the sleeves and necks off the T-shirts as we began the work on this project together.  By the way – I should mention that we first went to the quilt shop for fabric and we had lunch together.  Janna bought my lunch.  She’s a very good niece.  Buying lunch for your quilter friends who you want to make you quilts could also win you brownie points.  Just something you might want to keep in mind.

Notice the small pile of T-shirts on the table next to Janna.  That pile is no longer there.  I worked hard at eliminating piles today while Janna was here.  She was a big help with that, encouraging me all day!  She even had some good tips for organizing my piles.  The best one of which was to get some pretty canvas storage bins to store piles in on shelves.  Makes the piles less cluttering in the room.  And easy to stack and move around too – if they happen to land on the ironing board or cutting table.  It was a very good tip and one I will use as soon as possible!  I think some red ones would be nice since red is my favorite color.  But I’d be happy with a cluster of pleasing colors to cheer up the room.  I can almost picture them on the shelves.  Who knew that organizing could be such fun?  If your quilter friend is in need of some organizing tips, showing up at their house one day with some pretty canvas storage bins could win you more brownie points.  Just a thought….

Janna and I did start with this BIG pile of T-shirts.  But we whittled it down to a much more manageable stack of nice T-shirt quilt blocks before the day was over.  And Janna took all the leftovers with her when she left so I didn’t end up with a new pile.  Thank you, Janna!

Janna did all the ironing of the fusible interfacing to the T-shirts!  Well, I did one, which was hardly anything.  Then I did the squaring up at the cutting table as she finished the pressing.  And in between – because she had a much bigger, more time-consuming job than I had – I organized!  With her cheering me on all the way!  I didn’t just move piles around!  I found places for them!  You’d be proud of me!  I hardly even recognize my sewing room!  Quick!  Come and visit me before it gets all cluttered up again!  You’ll be amazed!  I think my exclamation point is stuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It really does look nice.  I’m still admiring it late into the evening…. or should I say early into the morning?

And here are all the blocks up on my design wall.  Please notice that other than one small pile of fabric on the filing cabinet, the top work surfaces are totally free of piles.  It doesn’t show in the picture, but that includes the ironing board, the sewing and the cutting tables.  Amazing! 

The black fabric that you see behind some of the blocks will actually be the sashing between all the blocks when this quilt is finished.  It has little music notes on it.  We thought that would go well with the fact that these shirts were mostly from her band days.  Janna was pleased with the choice!  It was pretty much a no-brainer when she saw that fabric at the shop.  And since the school colors are black and green, we went with a pretty green batik for the backing fabric. 

And in case you’re worried that you won’t see this quilt again, I promise that I’ll keep you posted on the progress.  I am a blogger, after all.  Bloggers keep their fans posted.  It’s what we live for.

Boo had a job today too.  It was his job to hold down any fabric to keep the ceiling fan from blowing it around.  You can see here that he performed very well!  And he did this job all day today.  He is still, as I type, holding down this nice green batik backing fabric.  What a cat!  I can always count on him to do his job.  As long as the job I give him involves napping.

Thank you, Janna, for a fabulous day!  Let’s do it again soon, OK?
Love,
Aunt Barb