Monday 23 January 2012

First quilt of the year

Today is DS1's birthday. In the Autumn he sorted his shirts and brought me the ones he couldn't use any longer. I liked the colours, and I was very inspired by Stephanie's masculine Courthouse Steps quilt for his son. I stole the idea of using a "trousers colour" with the shirt fabrics.


The Chinese Coins pattern has long been on my list of quilts I wanted to make, and here is is all finished:


I named the quilt "Business Class" for all the business shirts in it. It is bigger than I thought it would be, 150 cm wide and 190 cm long. I wanted to baste it in the sewing class on Thursday and took my backing fabric, the finished top and the batting with me there. I used masking tape to hold the backing in place on the large, lovely table, spread the batting on top, and then the quilt top. Believe it or not, by top was wider than the backing! I could not go home for some fabric to add, so I stitched my Scandinavian Christmas block instead. Well, I got quite a bit of that done! The next morning I cut through the light grey backing, and cut a strip of the dark grey sashing and border fabric and added it between the halves. Then I vacuumed the hall floor, rolled away the carpet, cleaned the floor and started the layering all over again. I was VERY surprised to notice that the backing was still smaller than the top. Yes, I do own a tape measure, or  three, maybe five. I just didn't come to think of using one. On my knees I went, and spent some quality time there, stretching my hamstrings if nothing else. After machine quilting I simply cut the extra width of the borders to match the backing size. Friday evening and a good part of Saturday was spent with the binding, and I even added a label. Yesterday we went to his birthday party, delicious cake and coffee. He was surprised to see his shirts again. They matched their dark grey sofa nicely. - Why didn't I start earlier, you might ask? Well, we originally thought the invitation was for next Sunday, and I did want to baste the quilt on that good table in class instead of the floor. And by the way, he was born weeks early.

We have been getting new snow almost daily all this month. The young trees begin to bend under the snow load, but they will straighten up again when it gets warmer.




11 comments:

  1. Lovely quilt, great photo in the snow.

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  2. It turned out to be a very masculine quilt. I love the dark brown with the lighter shirt fabrics and putting it on the snow to take a photo really makes it a striking quilt.

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  3. What a wonderful birthday gift. Love the colors and layout. My son's quilt name is Business Casual. :o) It's so striking laying in the snow.

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  4. Happy birthday to your son!
    What a beautiful quilt you made him, Ulla! Those shirt fabrics are perfect and you found the right name for the quilt. Now what is that little red marking?
    Oh my, how the backing can keep you busy. Glad it all worked out in the end.
    Wished we had some snow here ...

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  5. You make quilts the same way i do - with a healthy dose of haphazardness thrown in for good measure (no pun intended)! Glad you got Business Class done - it looks fantastic!

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  6. The quilt is beautiful! I like the soft colors a lot.

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  7. Wow what a wonderful quilt Ulla!!
    I am very impressed ;-))
    It is a lot memories in all thoose fabrics.. Take care and have more fun.

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  8. excellent use of old shirts, it looks very spectacular and will have a lot of good memories stitched into it.

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  9. It's absolutely gorgeous, Ulla! Your son must be so happy and proud to have it! The snow is beautiful - it finally looks like winter there!
    Cheers!

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  10. Liebe Ulla, sei mir nicht böse, aber ich musste lachen, als ich deinen Bericht las wie es dir mit dem - übrigens sehr schönen und so männlichen - Quilt ergangen ist. Das genau gleiche ist auch mir schon passiert. Da nimmt frau extra den Quilt in die Nähstunde damit man den grossen Tisch benutzen kann und dann hat man zuwenig Stoff....grrr!. Das ist mir wirklich letztes Jahr passiert. Hier sandwiche ich die drei Teile auch immer am Boden, mangels grossem/breitem Tisch. Aber du hast ja alles rechtzeitig gerettet. Dein Quilt hätte sogar den Namen "First Class" verdient :-) !!
    In den Bergen hat es bei uns massenhaft Schnee, aber hier unten warten wir noch darauf!
    Herzliche Grüsse, Barbara

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