Sewing for the Boys – a rare treat as I usually sew for myself or work
Sewing for the boys – a quilt for my eldest son finally got finished
I mostly sew for myself or work, so sewing for the boys was a treat. Although I’m a bit late posting this blog, these projects were made for Christmas, I thought I’d share it nevertheless.
My eldest son has always loved going to music gigs and has done so since his early teens. A couple of years ago he cleaned out his room and put several of his beloved band t-shirts into the Charity pile. He was reluctant to discard them, but space and his growing size meant needs must. So I stealthily took them from the pile in order to make a quilt for him secretly.
Scroll on a year or so and the quilt finally got made last December in time for Christmas. He was utterly delighted and amazed and loves it – so it was all worth it.
I used strips cut from fat quarters to create sashing and make the panels match up
Sewing for the Boys
Firstly I carefully cut the fronts of the T-shirts off around the motif using a rotary cutter to ensure a neat cut edge. I then cut strips of fusible interfacing 13mm wide and fused these to the wrong side around the edges of each panel to stabilise them. Then came the task of combining them all. I used an opportunity of the down-time I had whilst staying in a hotel over a weekend for some Create and Craft TV shows. The big double bed was a great ‘design board’ that I could lay out all the panels on to see what ‘sashing’ I needed between them to create same size panels to be joined.
My sashing was made from a couple of fat quarters of music print fabric. I then joined all the pieces row by row, putting the joined sections back on my ‘design board’ in place as I worked.
Backing and quilting
I backed the quilted front with a hand-dyed length of fleece I had in my stash
It took about 8 hours to combine all the pieces, add the fleece backing (this was a piece of hand-dyed fleece I had bought from an exhibition a few years ago) and then quilt the layers by stitching in the ditch around the panels. I had decided not to add wadding as my son always complains about being too hot.
I made a cushion cover to put the quilt into when not in use using strips from the fat quarters in a crazy patchwork design.
I then used a final T-shirt that had a longer motif which didn’t fit the quilt as the cushion cover front in which ot put the quilt. On the back I created a crazy patchwork design using remnants of the fat quarters and some red fabric I had in my stash. The cushion cover has a zip at one end so it is easy to fold the quilt and insert it to create a cushion.
Fluffy and soft cushion covers
Three fluffy and super soft cushions – made with love
I showed the finished quilt to my younger son who thought his brother would be pleased. He then thought a bit and said “I would like a present made with love too. I’d like some cushions for my room”. So he and I went shopping and bought 1 metre of soft and fluffy fleece and three 18” cushion pads. I then made three cushion covers, with an envelope back finished with large poppas. I did have to overlock all the seams as the fluff went everywhere whilst cutting and sewing and of course, they needed to be washable!
Whilst the cushions weren’t a surprise for younger son, he also loved them and felt cherished.
So two lovely Christmas presents that cost very little, but meant an enormous amount.