Graduation Quilt

I absolutely love making a quilt for someone special:)

Graduation is such a happy time for the graduate.  They are off to college to learn new and exciting things and begin a new phase of their life.  They have stars in their eyes of how wonderful life will be; thinking they have all the answers to life's questions.

My daughter graduated in June of 2012.  Maybe it was harder when she graduated because she was the youngest.  I am not sure.  All I knew was my baby girl was graduating, and I was scared to death!

Amber was a very sick baby.  There were times I wouldn't sleep but a few hours each day because she was so sick.  As she got older, she became stronger.  By the age of four, she was running behind her older brother on the football field when he would have practice.  A few years later, she started playing sports herself.

As the years went on I found myself keeping all of her team t-shirts.  She was very active in church so I kept those t-shirts as well.  When my mom came down with breast cancer, she started walking with my mom every year in the Relay for Life.  So I kept those t-shirts also.

As graduation got closer, I pulled out those old t-shirts and decided I would make Amber a graduation quilt.  What more could a girl want, right?

Amber has always been very colorful.  She has always worn two different color of socks:)  Not sure why, this was just what she did.  So I knew this quilt would have to be different from any other quilt that I had made.  It had to be unique, just like her.

So I started by cutting all of the sayings off of the t-shirts and cutting them in ways that would showcase the integrity of the quotes.  I used a woven cotton fusible interfacing to keep the shirt from stretching.  Then I started looking at fabrics.

I must have bought at least 25 fat quarters.  I just picked out fabrics that I knew Amber would like.  I used Etsy to purchase some iron on patches, and then I started.

I also used Printed Treasures to make some of the appliques.  There were certain phrases I wanted to put on the quilt.  So I made the appliques in Word and printed them on the Printed Treasures, then appliqued them to the squares.

I picked up one fat quarter and just started laying out the pieces of t-shirts to see what should go where.  It was amazing how everything just seemed to blend; just like my sweet little girl:)  I took a picture of each square so you can get an idea of how it was pieced together.

The first row:

Second Row:

Third row:

Fourth Row:

Fifth Row

I was totally out of my comfort zone with this:)  I appliqued all of the designs on to the squares.  I did have fun exploring the new stitches on my Janome machine.  I think I tried all of them at least once.  

Some of the sports appliques were vinyl.  I had a hard time with the vinyl shifting while I was trying to applique.  One thing that seemed to work was taking a scrap piece of fabric and laying to the right side of the needle but under the walking foot.  

After I got the squares done, I made sure all measured 16" wide.  I then had to make the choice of what color to do the borders in.  I decided on the hot pink.  Once the borders were on the squares, I sewed them all together to make this very special quilt.