A T-Shirt Quilt, I Have Relented!

 

 A local farm here advertised on Facebook that their professional photographer was now taking appointments for clients to be pictured in their glorious sunflower fields. Last year, families, pets, young and old posed for beautiful photos, many people posted them. What a wonderful way to savor the family, the flowers, and the history. This farm is hundreds of years old. When I was a teen I dated a boy whose family owned the farm and the gigantic Empire style farmhouse. No board and batten in that one. Everything was grand and polished, mahogany staircase, heavy velvet lined draperies in the formal rooms with a grand piano in the corner. The house has lost some of it's grand presence but the sunflower fields seem to make up for it, stunning. While I will not go for the photo opportunity, I will try to get over there to take some pictures.  

So today I am all about T-shirt quilts. In the past I have made two and swore that I would never do it again. A family member needed some help finishing up one she is making as a graduation gift for her Godson. Bless her heart, I really don't like making these. But I gave in, I relented, it became my gift to her. She did a beautiful job stabilizing the shirts and putting it all together. With the deadline for the party looming, quilting is required.

Loading and prepping this T-Shirt quilt was a little different because the maker did such a good job applying the interfacing to the shirts. In addition, the backing is actually another quilt, it is the backs of the shirts. So we were dealing with 5 layers instead of 3 and and a spongy thick poly batting.

After three advances of the fabric we decided to remove the third bar because the bulk was making it very difficult to keep the right tension on the quilt and wrestling with all that bulk was a bit much. It was really quite heavy. You would think we were making a "weighted" quilt. 

These long bar magnets held all that thickness without difficulty. I bought these at Harbor Freight, and yes, they are heavy, very strong, and fingers are easily pinched if one is not careful.

That was better. We flipped the quilt to do the far edge that was too large for this frame. She is doing a good job. This is her first big quilt project and she has never used this machine before. Doing pretty good I think. I hovered close by, after we did some bobbin adjustments the machine functioned perfectly. 

The front, the young man has graduated high school and each of these shirts commemorate his role in many plays presented at his school. In Fall, he is off to University and this quilt will go with him. We made it pretty sturdy!

This is the back of the quilt, see what I mean? It is another totally pieced quilt!

• While this one was well prepared and stitched, I still don't plan to do another one.
• I am rather protective of my machines, that is nothing new. Prior to our session, I double checked for lint in the bobbin case, oiled said bobbin case, dusted all the tracks and wheels even though I put her away clean, and she is covered, the tracks are open. I wound some new bobbins, loaded a scrap layered piece of fabric and ran some tests as I always do. It was fine, but when we loaded her quilt nothing but thread nests! It had to be the 5 layers vs. 3, so I wound more bobbins a bit tighter and one a bit looser, the looser bobbin won out and all was well. I do not use a Towa gauge; I use the famous drop method. It has always worked in the past, sometimes with adjustment. I also loosened the upper tension a half turn to account for the thickness. I fussed and fussed until I got it right. Her comment was funny, she says that now she knows where my son gets his obsessive habits. 
• As with every project I cleaned the studio and put everything back into place. 

I had some issues with my side clamps slipping, I have ordered some new Bungee Grabbers, these attach to the horizontal side arms of the frame to stabilize the cords with one click rather that looping and tying them. I will share that when they come, hopefully they are not on a boat somewhere in the Pacific!

• These clamps work well, but I have modified them. I use a piece of woven tape in the clamp area and then pin the other end of the tape to the quilt. I will share a picture soon; I have another small item ready to load now. With those little keeper things, you click the elastic cords that hold the clamps in between the little wheels. I just ordered one set for a test, most long-armers have larger frames and use 2 or more sets. We will see, they are expensive. 
  
  
  

I bought these Handi Quilter side clamps in 2018, (Handi Quilter makes Baby Lock quilting machines) and have used a couple different methods to secure them, none very good IMO,

• That's all for now, have a great day, sew something!