Another Quilt From Shirts

Another basket today - yay!  No group shot today - doesn't look that much different than yesterday's post.

It is time to start the third quilt from my Dad's shirts.  It's been just over 4 months since he died.  You may remember that I made the Gee's Bend inspired quilt and gave it to my brother for Christmas.  I made a different quilt with the shirts using hexies which quickly became a Secret Project, to appear in my next book.  Now I want to make a quilt for my Mother and I want to do it quickly.

I've been thinking about what to do.  I really like Wanda's take on the random plank quilts we see everywhere.  Some call them Jelly Roll Race quilts, or 1600 quilts.  You sew an entire jelly roll of fabric (2.5" x 44" precut strips of fabric) end to end.  Then you put the ends together and sew down the length, cutting the fold when you get to it.  Then you put the ends together again and repeat.  You do this about 8 times and you have a quilt top in about an hour.

I like the way Wanda inserted those little polka dot squares here and there and everywhere!

I thought it would be nice to insert little nine patches amidst the planks.  So to keep my measurements easy, I decided that each nine patch would finish at 3".  That meant I need to cut my planks at 3.5" (rather than the 2 1/2" measurement of jelly roll strips).

Then I got to thinking, why not make this a quilt-as-you-go project?  So when I'm done, I'm done!

So I cut 1.5" strips for the nine patch units, strip piecing away!

Cute little nine patches!  The shirt fabrics in the nine patches will vary throughout the quilt.

And here a shot of what I have so far.  There is a backing that you cannot see, the batting, and I'm working my way from the top to sew strips down through all layers.  I put together a strip set first, then stitch it into the quilt.  Every row will not have a nine patch - I'll just scatter them around as I see fit.

If I do a few strips sets per day, this should be finished rather quickly.

Tonight I made a quick beef stew recipe that was in the local paper last week.  The veggies are onions, carrots, and sweet potatoes.  It was delish!  Now I'm settled in front of the TV to appliqué hexies.

Thanks to those (including Daughter 1) who taught me how to fix my autocorrect so I can type "hexies" without any problems!