Quilts x 4!

I have mentioned briefly the secret quilting project I was working on in this fall in preparation for Christmas.  I am going to finally reveal what exactly I was doing! (I know, everyone has probably been waiting SO anxiously! Haha!).

I was making four quilts for Mary (Justin's mom).  The covert operation started this fall when she and Larry were cleaning and cosolidating around their house.  As many of you know, Justin's dad, Dennis, passed away in 1991.  Over the years, she held on to several of his shirts that held memories of him as a reminder.  Mary found them hanging in a basement closet while organizing and was contemplating what to do with them.  She got inspiration from my blog posts about the quilts I made from my old shirts over the summer and asked me if I could turn Dennis's shirts into quilts for Justin and his sister and their grandmother, and also one for her to keep.  I was instantly excited about the idea so I went to their house without Justin's knowledge one weekend and picked up the shirts.  There were about 20, all along the same lines.  They had the snaps and pointed pockets and yokes of western style shirts, and the patterns were plaids and stripes.  I knew right away that they would make attractive quilts! 

This is the first one I pieced together!  I was the smallest of the three, consisting of 7 x 7 inch squares arranged 8 across x 9 down.  The other three were larger, with 9 squares across and 11 down.  Although it seems like alot of work, the sewing aspect went quite fast.  It was the cutting that took the most time.  There was quite a bit of seam ironing and ALOT of string trimming!  I did most of the work at Andrea's (it was nice to be able to work without Justin's knowledge and without having to hide everything from him) and strings will probably be hanging around her basemet for the next year.

Here they are, all finished!  I tied them instead of quilted them.  They are very soft due to the well worn shirt fabric! 

The tan shirt was Dennis's Cub Scout leader uniform from when Justin was involved in scouting.  For his quilt I repositioned the patches in the middle of the squares.  They were originally on the shoulder near the seam.  There was the patch shown above and an America flag.  These patches and the quilt corners were the only parts that required hand sewing so that was a relief!  I am not a fan of hand sewing...

This photo shows some of the pockets!  I love the look of the snaps! 

When I finished the project I had three bags of scraps remaining and thought it would be nice to make something more.  I thought that Christmas ornaments would be a good idea and searched for some ideas on the internet.  After a few test runs and rejected ideas I came up with these little Christmas trees!  They were a combination of a few different examples I found that for various reasons didn't work.  They were a great way to showcase the pretty colors of the snaps!

Here they are before I sewed the back on.

The pinking sheared edge really added to the look and fixed any uneven edges.  I had planned to use my mom's pinking shears but as soon as I tried to cut with them I realized that they no longer cut fabric because my sister and I used to play with them and use them to cut paper and make scrapbooks.  Sorry mother!  She told me to buy her a new pair and a few days later I recieved my very own pair for christmas! 

This was a great way to share the project with more family members! 

It was alot of fun to make these quilts.  I am prone to getting burned out on projects sometimes and not finishing them in a timely manner (such as the t-shirt quilt I finally finished this fall after I had the quilt top stashed in a closet for two years!) but I didn't while I was working on these (being accountable to someone else might have helped!).  I could feel Dennis's approval.  Everyone loved their quilts!