I spent this morning helping a friend work on a t-shirt quilt she is making for her son's graduation in May.
It was an interesting challenge as she does not know how to sew, knows nothing about quilting, and yet dove right in after watching a few tutorials on YouTube. She is making a king sized quilt and the blocks are not the same size and she is not using sashing to help make the rows even. She has one t-shirt she wanted to be the focal point and it was not set in correctly. Her seam sizes are quite varied, and thank goodness for that because I would not have been able to correct the issue with the focal point if she hadn't had extra fabric in the seams.
I helped her rip out a few seams and then we had to lay it out flat while I tried to figure out how we could get the block in without puckers. With some creative folding I was able to get the block in and then I whipped stitched it in place on top and placed three new seams in for her. It corrected the issue with the block. I was so glad I was able to find a solution. I think it will be a great looking quilt when she is done, but she will have to spend a great deal of time cutting the excess fabric from the seams.
After getting the focal block in I showed her how to join borders and a few other tips before she headed back to her house.
She just called all excited to say that I showed her more in our time together than she had learned up to now and by using my tips had made great progress this afternoon. I am so glad I could help her.
When she has the top done, I told her I would help her sandwich and get it ready for quilting.
I have already given her tips on how to quilt it and have it ready in time for graduation.
It was great being able to help a new quilter. I think I will be seeing her a lot in the future as she has 7 more quilts to make.
I think the most valuable thing I taught her was about JoAnn's and the coupons you could use there.
