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Friday, May 14, 2010

Jeans and T Shirt

asewtell150
My oldest son has never showed much of an interest in the quilts I’m making while they’re in the piecing stage. Once I lay them out for basting though, he comes right over to see. After making a few comments or maybe asking a question or two about it, he inevitably asks when I’m going to make HIM a quilt. I put it off thinking he was just being nice, but then I got a great idea for a quilt that would fit my boy to a T.

I called it “Jeans and Tshirt.” In my stash I had a big stack of blue scraps that were given to me from my MIL and when paired with white, they reminded me of jeans and a nice clean white tshirt. (my boy’s favorite school-day outfit.)
I added just a touch of red to add a little bit of unexpectedness…

…my son chose a nice soft fleece for the backing….

…and I added a scrappy binding (using up the last bits of blues from that same stack from my MIL.)

The blocks were made using some fairly simple paper piecing and then sashed in white with just a bit of wonkiness. I have more photos of how I made the blocks and I’ll post a pseudo-tutorial on that tomorrow.
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I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the fleece back. I really thought it would pucker as I quilted it, but it worked beautifully! I did use my usual batting as well as the fleece. I basted it as normal and quilted it as I usually do. Really the only difference was just in how much more bulk there was to work around as I quilted.
The finished quilt is only 55x72 (my son has a loft bed with a railing so his quilts can’t “hang” too much.) and he absolutely loves it. The biggest complement to me was not so much the words he said, but the fact that he carries it downstairs to watch cartoons in the morning!

16 comments:

  1. Outstanding! I love string quilts and this one is very special

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  2. How perfect! Great finish and it's going to be very loved.

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  3. Love this!! Absolutely perfect for a boy! So he maybe wasn't just being polite but really wanted his own quilt.

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  4. this is brilliant and such a great twist on the denim quilts i have seen out there. it looks so modern

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  5. Wow, Andy. What a fun quilt. I really like how the squares are all a little different and wonky. So cool. I never knew you had this in you in college!

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  6. Fantastic! I love all things sashed white and the red accents are brilliant!

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  7. I love string quilts, and I love this one! Great use of the red among the blue. I've never seen a fleece back, but nice to know it quilted so well.

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  8. That is a beautiful quilt and I know he will treasure it for a very long time. Great work!!

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  9. What a fantastic boy quilt! Jeans and t-shirt is a perfect name for it. It came out beautifully.

    I would have never thought about using a fleece for backing. I bet that it makes it extra warm and snuggly.

    Ah, a high compliment indeed. :-)

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  10. I love this quilt! So perfect for a boy. The red was a great touch too.

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  11. What a beautiful quilt Andy, I love it!!!!

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  12. Spectacular! I love the name. Very creative.

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  13. Hi
    I love this quilt. Do you think it could be made with real blue jeans? I have my sons jeans since he was little.
    Also, do you have a quilt pattern called Preppy? Thank you

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    1. Hi JoJo
      You probably could make this with actual denim, but it would be pretty bulky where each seam is. I've made one denim quilt in my life and my older machine struggled to sew through the seams sometimes.

      And I do have a pattern called Preppy - if you go up to the search bar (either in the top left corner or in the right hand side bar) and type in "preppy" it should come up.

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