Kitty on the Edge

Occasionally, Miss Betty pushes the envelope (of my patience) and sits on the edge of the half wall in our upstairs living room.  The stairwell in this picture is just to the right, and is a full flight down, should she fall off, which of course she never does.  My t-shirt quilt is hanging on the railing, as you can see.

Yesterday kitty was sitting looking at me (with the same expression) on the kitchen counter, where she is not supposed to be, of course. 

Oh, the many joys of KAT!

COLORADO! T-shirt Quilt

I'm still working on Play Ball! and hope to have a completion report very soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to share another one of my recent projects.  This one is entitled "COLORADO!"  and is a t-shirt quilt.

Fran, my Mom, lived in Colorado for about 15 years, having moved to Grand Junction after she retired from her job in Reno.  Yes, Mom is a desert rat (and I mean that in the most loving way, Mom).  I was able to visit her and her husband Jim, many times and collected a number of t-shirts during that time.  They were, of course, collecting dust hanging in my closet, never seeing the light of day. 

I had contemplated making a t-shirt quilt for several years, but was unsure how to go about it.  I was visiting Mom one day early last year and we did a little shopping at a local quilt shop, Antoinette's Quilt Shop in Plover.  They had a t-shirt quilt on display there, along with the pattern and accessories.  The pattern is "Memories to a "T"" by Crooked Nickel Quilt Designs.  The foundation for the quilt is Pellon Quilter's Grid On Point.  It is printed with 1" wide grid lines, and quite simply, you line up your t-shirt squares, sashing strips, and setting triangles on the grid, press to fuse to the grid, and sew your seams.  The seams are all encased within the grid, so no raw edges!  And, your t-shirt knits are firmly stabilized!

The hardest part of this project was finding just the right fabrics for the sashing, inner and outer borders.  The outer border and setting triangles (the green) is a forest print, which reminds me very much of the mountains of Colorado.  The inner border is a rust, and the sashing and binding is a marble print of rusts, browns, greens, white. I used brown flannel for the backing.   

Here's a close up so you can see the fabrics I chose more clearly.  The t-shirt from Vail says:  Caution Bear Dropping   (It's my favorite one!)

This quilt currently hangs over the railing in my front entry hallway, so it's the first thing my guests see when they come in the front door.