Letter shirts ~~ finished

I mentioned on Pin It Weekly that one of my friends has a small shop offering letter shirts for college students. The majority of her business comes from Greek organizations, mostly from Phi Mu. 

On Tuesday she fell and broke her left wrist. A trip to the ER got her a pass to today's surgery. Combine those two bits of information and you can probably figure out how her mishap concerns me. I sew. I mean I sew anything. I've made wedding dresses, knit garments, kitchen accessories, baby accessories, suits for myself and lots of other things I can't think of on the fly. So, yeah, I sew.

A trip to surgery (even "just" outpatient surgery) means you won't be sewing for a day or two. But she had orders that needed to go out right now. Guess who got the call? As I said on Wednesday, I've helped her before, so it's not a big deal. But she was in pain and a perfectionist, so it was a big deal to her. 

Upper left corner: finished shirts; upper right,
two fabric choices on tee; lower left, two choices
incl. the chosen geometric; lower right, my preference.
Lesson: don't make choices for clients!

Okay, okay, I stepped in. One of the customers hadn't made fabric decisions, so I pressured her with pictures of only a few samples and in no time I had the shirts, the letters, and everything else ready for production. 

Except I sewed the letters on the first two shirts in the wrong order! TWO letters! backwards! Arghuhhh. Rip, rip, rip half the night--knit does not play nice. Resew the correct way and work on the other items. The delivery person had to pick the order up at my house to make her appointment; it was that close!

So yesterday I went to check on my broken friend and encourage her before seeing the surgeon. More shirts. And a couple of jackets. And a couple of blankets. Hmmm, I have such a tough time saying "no," especially after I've already said "yes."

Anyway, if you're going to help someone, you may as well see it through to the end.

 

 So the weekend will be spent in the sewing room working on her shirts. But I'll be in the sewing room!

blanket in gold 

 And a few more pics of the completed shirts. The jackets (in black) are still in WIP stage. I have to rip out the bottom hem before sewing on the applique. Otherwise the pocket won't open. The kids love that she always opens up the jacket and saves the pocket. It's a great place to toss a phone. 

two more blankets

When was the last time you got wrangled into helping a friend? Comment down below and, as always, thanks for visiting.

Visit these good ole Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Save Your Shirt!

I am a mess. A really, really messy person. The kind of messy person who wears stains on the front of her favorite shirt. Make that every shirt.  The kind of messy person who kills multiple trees every year in paper towels.

Meet Exhibit A.  [photo enhanced to show stain] 

Most of my shirts look like this within a couple of wearings. I've tried several ways to camouflage the stains: sweaters (too hot), scarves (too heavy on my neck), brooch (on a tee shirt--no), nothing. Really nothing works. It's hopeless. Until now.

It's quite simple and I should have gotten off my lazy end much sooner.  Here it is:

Cute, cute. Easy peasy and lemon squeezy. Cover the mess with applique. The cuter the applique, the better the distraction.

I started with a couple of my Accuquilt Studio dies.

Added a few scraps from a friend. 

A few flowers and a birdie later, the stain is covered and the tee is a little cuter for the change. At least now I can wear it in public!

Did I say all of my shirts have stains? Maybe I exaggerated a little, but the truth is that several do. Since the first one came out so cute, I decided to work on one more. This time I used my own fabric but the same friend (I love you, Leta), who happens to be a great artist and art teacher, made me a set of monogram appliques. I wrote about the shirts that I appliqued for my girls as Christmas gifts a year ago. 

This one, though, is all mine and does a great job of covering the stain that is hiding right under the largest part of the middle M. How convenient is that?

I'm loving the polka dots! The darkest ones are an almost perfect match to the true color of the shirt. Just so happens that this deep blue is one that looks really good with my skin tone. I call it a pasty yellowish off-white. Definitely my face needs some color in my clothing.

Tee Shirts and Girls

There are 10 girls in my family, including myself.  Which means that when I set out to make something for someone, I have to be willing to make at least eight more.  Since I don't like to be left out, I usually make a couple more than that.

I recently made a tee shirt for myself thanks to the help of a good friend.  She's the artist who designed the letters for the shirt. I told you about her in a post a few weeks ago.  Her FB page is here.  She thought it would be fun if I made shirts for everybody.

the little girls' shirts

I am easily convince and set out to make one for each of the girls on my list.  That means the three daughters-in-law, the three big granddaughters, and the three little granddaughters.  No one to be left out, of course.

Catherine

Marley

Sophie

The problem with making shirts for everyone is that there are so many to sew.  I don't necessarily lose interest so much as I like to make a couple, see that I can do it and then move on to something new.  I like challenge but I'm more of a sprinter rather than a long-distance runner.  (Oddly, I make quilts!)

Anyhoo, I bought enough shirts to make one for each of the girls and a couple for myself.  Then I promised to finish all the gift shirts before starting on my own.  I really wanted a couple of my own, so I had some incentive.

the moms' shirts

And having incentive was nice, but it turns out that I didn't really need it.  I got very enthused about seeing how each shirt would look once completed.  I'd chosen the fabrics based on each person's interests, then chose the shirt to match the fabric.  Once the shirt was complete I could determine whether or not I'd chosen well.

the big girls' shirts

I think I did and here's why: the day after Christmas three of the girls wore their tees to go shopping.  Then on Sunday a whole crew of Marcottes returned from a visit to St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Dusti was wearing her shirt.  

Of course, everyone said, "Thank you."  They are sweethearts and very polite, but I got a good feeling that they also liked my little handmade offerings and that, my friends, is much better than working on my own shirts!  Leta did it again...go look her up! 

From 1 to 3

Along with the other photos that my sister Laura took are some of my small quilts.  One of my favorite pieces is this triptych that I made about ten years ago.  

I saw a Simply Quilts episode on making the monogram block and wanted to make one to put over the bar in our dining room.  That section of cabinet has since been removed, so the 12 X 12 inch quilts are now hanging vertically in the studio.  

After making the monogram block, I decided that I wanted two more blocks--one with fruit and one with flowers.  

Much of our living area had deep burgundy as the secondary color, so I decided to use burgundy, greens, and bits of other colors that would work together

The flower piece was actually quite easy, although there were a few techniques that I had not attempted before.    Reverse applique turned out to be easier than I anticipated but I was pretty nervous about cutting out the sections.  More difficult was appliqueing the berries so that they would be perfectly round.  The tight circles gave me fits.

Crazily enough, I included berries in the monogram piece, also.  I should have put more of the berries in this piece but they were just too much for me at the time.  Now, of course, I don't have any of the fabric, or I'd add a few.  Oh well, that's how it goes.

Of the three pieces, the fruit block is my favorite.  I really like the look of glass that I managed to achieve.  It, too, was difficult, but it was so much fun to watch the glass take shape and to place the fruit in the composition.  

I added a few leaves to the grape vines and stem on the apples and pears so there would be a little green in the piece.  The grapes were so much easier to applique than the berries simply because they don't have to be perfectly round and it's easy enough to cover mistakes.

I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do.  Laura did such a great job shooting them.  She managed to catch the colors perfectly.  I'm amazed every time I look at her photos.  


The triptych was definitely a learning piece for me.  There are some things that I'd do differently today, but every quilt I've made in the past would have a few changes if I were to remake them now.  That's the progression of learning, don't you think?  Would you remake any of your quilts exactly as the first time?  You know how much I love your opinions.

Happy Quilting,

Mary