Bobcat T-Shirt Quilt

A few posts ago, I had mentioned that I was enjoying some much needed time at home after a very busy fall and had used my time to catch up on some projects around the house.  One such project being a quilt.

And... this is where I've just lost most of my male readers. This post probably won't have anything to do with farming, sports, or anything manly at all. There's my disclaimer.  If you don't want to read about the first quilt I ever completed, that's fine with me-- Go ahead and leave. I'm sure there's a Bowl Game on TV.  ;)

As I was saying... Yes, this quilt was the first quilt I have ever completed start to finish. I do have a quilt top that is complete that I pieced back when I was living in Jackson (several years ago). It just needs to be backed, quilted, and bound.  I also have another quilt top in progress that I have been working on off-and-on for several years as well.  But this recent project makes me feel good because for once I actually FINISHED a quilt. And, it took me less than six months to do it!

This quilt is a T-Shirt quilt. Many of you have probably seen one of these before-- they're quite popular. The idea is nothing new.  The inspiration and theme for this quilt came about when Jeff informed me that our beloved Montana State Bobcats (Ok, you caught me-- there IS a Sports mention in this post!) would be updating their logo marketing.  We decided it would be a really cool gift idea to gather a bunch of shirts together with the old logo and work them into a quilt.  We also decided the best recipient of the quilt would be Carol, Jeff's mom, as she is possibly the biggest Bobcat fan we know. Or at least the most unabashed.

The idea came about in mid-July. Given my track record of, well, incomplete quilts, I decided that a deadline of Christmas would hopefully give me enough time.  The fact that I was sharing the plan and timeline with others gave me some much-needed accountability, too, which I think was absolutely critical to not only finishing the project but getting it done on time.

Favorite Moment #1: This woolen pennant, an idea taken from a quilt my Mom gave me, was appliqued onto the quilt front. Right above is a t-shirt piece featuring the MSU Fight Song.

 After the decision on who would receive the quilt was made, it was time to start gathering t-shirts. This had to be done with some secrecy since Carol can be hard to fool. I found a few shirts in my drawer and convinced Jeff to part with a few of his.  Josh and Katie (Jeff's sister and her husband) rounded up many several of their shirts and gave them to me over a football weekend this past fall. Tom had the trickiest time of all of us, and had to wait for a weekend when Carol was out of town to go through his drawers. He said he had to find some that he knew she wouldn't notice being gone.  It must have worked because as far as I know, she never mentioned any missing t-shirts.

Favorite Moment #2: The small piece in the lower center of this image is a wonderful vintage graphic from one of Tom's shirts.

The main guide and inspiration for this quilt was a very similar quilt my Mom made for me out of a stack of old Iowa State T-shirts.  She had mentioned to me that she stabilized the t-shirt material with fusible interlining on the back. A brilliant idea because then the t-shirts don't stretch and they can be worked and manipulated just like any woven quilting fabric.  I also borrowed her idea of stitching a large team flag on the reverse of the quilt.  My Mom was the person who first taught me to sew and first encouraged me to be creative with sewing-- one of the best gifts I have ever received. :)

Favorite Moment #3: I just liked this corner, with the log-cabin look of the way the strips ended up layering. Also shows the binding.

I wish I could say that I was really organized and followed some excellent instructions and executed brilliant planning sessions followed by diligent hard work. In reality, I made the whole thing up as I went along. I'm nothing if not resourceful. Most of the fabric used to supplement the t-shirt pieces was leftover scraps in my bin. I did supplement a bit with store-bought stuff, but not much. There's material from several other projects-- pot-holders, aprons, even some fabric from our wedding favors.  There was a lot of re-cutting pieces and trueing up edges to make straight seams.  Next time I will cut my t-shirt pieces much bigger- leaving room to chop off edges. You can see in some of the blocks that the logo got trimmed a bit in places. Oh well. Live and learn.

Favorite Moment #4: Mimicking the fadeout of the word Bobcats in the T-shirt graphic with gradiations of blue and gold fabrics.

I also had a bit of difficulty quilting the layers. I have never actually done any quilting of any kind before and tried a few different methods before ultimately deciding to use my sewing machine to strategically tack through all the layers. This was actually another trick I took from the quilt my Mom gave me.  In the end, I think it turned out great and saved a lot of time and hand-stitching.  I also opted to machine stitch the binding to save time and followed the instructions off an excellent sewing and quilting blog Cluck Cluck Sew.

Favorite Moment #5: Another delightful vintage graphic from Tom, met with a log-cabin style treatment around it.

Overall, I'm pleased with the final product. I love the colors-- it reminds me of stained glass. I'm really proud of myself for finishing a project. Most of all, the recipient was very pleased and touched.  Now, I already have plans to complete the other two quilts I've got started.  Perhaps I've caught the quilting bug... Just got to stick with it!

Finished quilt front

Finished Quilt Back

Overall, I think I used 25 t-shirts, 1 pair of gym shorts, a golf towel, a pennant, a team flag, and lots of time and hard work. Can't wait for the next project!