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Quilters Shirt Mini Quilt

Do quilters have a “uniform”? An easily identifiable way to say “Hey, I’m a quilter! And proud of it!”? If one existed, some days I think I’ve nailed it. I’ve been stopped so many times on the street, at events and in quilt stores by quilters who compliment my quilty outfits.

I admit that I often see quilt designs in some of the clothes I buy and thus it influences me buying it! There are a few particular dresses and shirts that seem to capture the attention of quilters in public. I decided to make a mini quilt based on one of my favorite quilty shirts.
The shirt that inspired the quilt.
I wanted to make a super mini – at least super mini in my mind. Anything under 20 x 20 inches is hard for me to make (ha!) as I love a much larger total project scale (but I loved the tiny piecing on those bottom black strips!). I decided to customize the color palette to my preferences, so it should be no surprise I chose pink as the colorful center portion. Getting the scale, or proportion, the right way that I wanted took a few sketches and playing with scraps.
Quilter's Shirt Quilt

Here are a few interesting facts about the mini:
  • Made entirely from scraps – all Kona Cotton solids
  • Finishes at 10.75” x 14”
  • Matchstick quilting, but turned 90 degrees so that it runs horizontal on the piece
  • Quilted with Aurifil 50 wt threads: 2021 (white), 2692 (black) and 2530 (pink)
  • Scrap batting that I’m certain is a 80/20 cotton poly blend
  • Machine binding (one of the FEW times I’ve ever done all machine binding) in black using 2.25” strips
  • The black strips at the bottom finish at .25”
  • Now hangs in my sewing studio and is one of my favorite pieces because it represents me so well!
Interestingly, this is also the piece that I had a disastrous time quilting. I was having some sort of tension issue on the bottom and if you follow me on Instagram, you got a sneak peek of some of the gnarly thread. Here’s the thing, I didn’t rip the seams out. It’s a piece that won’t be washed and won’t leave my studio, so I’m not worried about it. I implored the IG quilting community to share their wisdom on what might be going on (which will become a blog post soon!). At the end of the day, I don’t know for sure what happened, but I think it had to do with 1) not properly checking how it was threaded between my quick thread changes (I was moving fast back and forth to get the right color in the right section) and 2) a feed dog issue I discovered a couple weeks later I was having, which has now been resolved. That could have been the start of the issue and I didn’t realize it.

I’m pleased with the result and think I might tackle another "quilter’s clothes mini" in the future :)
Upclose look at the matchstick quilting. The front looks great! The back, not so much!


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