Saturday, August 20, 2011

My Vacation Project Continues ...The Denim Shirt Project!

All of your rectangles should have one strip on one side at this point and are pressed and rotary trimmed.


Note:  Denim fabric is woven with a twill weave. It gives a little. It may shift a little when you are sewing. Do not worry about your seams coming out perfectly.  It will be a little uneven and that is OK.  I like the unevenness of the seams - adds character to the quilt.  


This is a fun quilt! Don't match any seams! Just have fun!


Then sew more blue strips to the pieces onto another side until all of them have a strip on two sides. Press and rotary trim the ends. 







Then sew a strip on a third side of all the pieces. Press and rotary trim.  


Sew a strip on the fourth side of all the pieces. Press and rotary trim. 


You now have denim squares and rectangles that have strips on all four sides. We will call them blocks from this point on.  They are blocks of several sizes.  They will look like this: 






Group the blocks into piles of similar sizes.  Then start to arrange them on a flat surface.  


I like to place a bigger block in each row and then add the smaller ones.  The smaller ones will have another strip sewed onto one or two of the sides, so they can be sewed onto the larger blocks to complete a row. I sew two smaller blocks together to achieve the right length or width of a larger block.












I sew some of the blocks together that are a little too big and just trim them off to fit. See how I lay out the rows and later I will trim the longer edges.




Here's an example of how the ends stick out --- Rotary trim them off, so you have a perfect rectangle and then add borders.  I had two strips the same color but different widths and two other blue strips.  I stitched them on to all four sides of my quilt top. You will be able to see that the borders are different and you may even be able to see that they are different widths.  That is OK!  That is what helps make it interesting.








I placed the quilt top on my picnic table. See the borders.


I made hot pads out of the scraps.  I will explain the construction process on the hot pads in another post.  It's a cool method! 
Day is done at the River... quilt top is done ... and ready for quilting when I get home!


After I quilt my table cloth and hot pads, I will bring it back to the River and take more pictures on the table, so you can see the soft and subtle dimension the quilting gives the denim fabrics.


I will fold up my finished quilt top and hot pads and put it away, until I get home! Stay tuned for another post next week, after I quilt and finish up "My Vacation Project" ---The Denim Shirt Project. 






Now I will start cutting the blue shorts apart ...


Enjoy your day!


Marcia

6 comments:

Vroomans' Quilts said...

I'm going to have to look for items like that - really like the added elements and textures.

Benta AtSLIKstitches said...

I'm rubbish at random, so thanks for showing how! :-)

My Life In Quilts said...

It looks wonderful! Nice work.

Belinda said...

Ok, I'm a little speechless. You rock!

Miss Hillbilly said...

Very cool! Your machine must not hate denim as much as mine does!

Snoodles said...

That is so neat, Marcia! I struggle with doing this random or wonky, so this was great for me to see you do it! Hope all is well - praying for your mom.
Jacque