Sewing

For Hubby's & my anniversary back in June I bought him an industrial sewing machine, yes that's what he wanted. I had no intentions of using this machine, I prefer to handstich :) But then while at the craft store I found a "Sew a Friend" kit on clearance. It included the pattern, instructions, & fabric to make a monster. Against my better judgement (the little angel on my shoulder whispering you have never used a sewing machine before), I bought it & decided to make it for Elias, the youngest of the Crazy People who live downstairs, for Christmas. Hubby taught me to use the machine, and after lots of threats to throw it out the window I finished the monster. I also learned to never use cheap thread in a sewing machine, apparently that was why I was having so many problems.

Here is the finished monster :) I guess sewing machines aren't as scary as I always believed.

 Elias loves his monster :) And Conner wants one now also. Which I owe him since he is older and I have never made him anything. He is so mistreated ;)

So since I have conquered my fear of the sewing machine, and learned not to use cheap thread in it, I decided to finally do something with all those special, but to worn out to wear tshirts that hubby & I have held onto over the years. I made a tshirt quilt! It is a rag quilt, and the back of it is the backs of the tshirts, which made it fairly simple.

First I chose 25 shirts to use, and I cut a 16" square out of the middle of each of them. I did this by pinning the front & back together so I could cut a square from both the front & back at the same time. Then I decided what order the shirts would be in on the quilt, & started pinning them together 2 shirts at a time.  Then I sewed the squares together with the right sides facing out so there is an exposed seam. This gave me 5 rows of shirts, each row being 5 shirts long (sorry I didn't start taking pics until late in the process).

After I had the 5 rows, I pinned the first 2 rows together, again with the right sides out to give an exposed seam, & sewed it together.

The first 2 rows

I continued this until all 5 rows were sewn together

All 5 rows, sorry not a great pic :(

Then I sewed along the 4 outer edges of the quilt. All seams are as close to 1/2" as I could muster as a newbie seamstress :) None of my seams are straight, so I ask that good seamstresses not look to close, please :)

Lastly I cut the seams in 1" pieces to give the "rag" look & washed it.

This is a close up of the "rag" effect

And here is hubby with the finished quilt :)

So if there is anything this newbie can tell you it would be, don't use cheap thread. The machine stopped giving me problems once I changed the thread!
If there are any experienced seamstresses, I could use any tips you would like to share :)