Thursday, July 4, 2013

Back to the "Dad" quilts

Wow, a whole month has gone by since I last posted something here.  Guess it has been another busy month!

The "Dad" quilts are slowly getting completed.  I'm working on the bindings now.  Because I decided that all of them should be made from 25 9" squares, I had to get creative with the last ones to be pieced.  Dad was a little guy, and it was hard to cut enough 9" squares from his shirts that were on the smaller side.

I turned to my "scrappy piecing" and cut pieces to fit into the armhole areas or the sides/bottoms of sleeves.  I now had pieces big enough to cut the squares that I needed. I also made some 4-patch squares from smaller shirt pieces and worked those into the quilt tops. 

For the quilt backs, I bought light-weight denim that is ~56" wide.  The extra width is just enough to use for the binding.  The quilts are tied with size 5 pearl cotton and random buttons from Dad's shirts are tied into the knots at the centers of the squares. 

The quilts are turning out soft and cuddly...hopefully a reminder to the recipients of the kind of guy Dad was--soft-spoken, accepting and encouraging.  He's been gone 2 years and he is still very much missed.