Valentine Gift For Dad and Mom - Finally Finished

I started working on making a life quilt for my dad way back in October this past year while helping a family member during a surgery. 

I had time on my hands and I was able to cut out these squares from T-Shirts and start to get all the squares into an order of his life. I worked on it that week but when I got home, I didn't have time to work on it with the holidays and I have been so tired for the past few months, I wasn't able to get to it. 

How happy I was to be able to get back to working on it this week! I had to exchange a few squares as I found a few more that I liked better than some I originally had. I also had to "size" the squares to make sure all the lines of the quilt are matching up and the same length. 

Your rows can be either short or tall but all the squares in each row need to be the same height. You can have as many shirts in the rows as you can fit but then all the rows need to be the exact same width so when you are organizing the quilt, it will be squared.

Also, if you are going to have a shorter row and several taller rows, you may want to center the shorter row. Or, if you have one tall row and several shorter, you may want to center the taller row. I have done both ways and it has worked both ways. I have links below to some of the quilts I have done but by typing "quilt" in the bottom search box, I have many, many more posts about quilts I have made. 

Here is a link to a Sesame Street Quilt where I had a taller and shorter one as well. 
Here is a link to an Avengers one where I stuck the taller shirts at the bottom.
Here is a link to a Snoopy Quilt where I alternated the short and longer rows.  
Here is a Pooh quilt where it is every other is short or longer. 

Once I have all the rows as even as I can get them, I start by sewing row by row but have learned that if I pin the entire row, it is difficult to manage and gets heavy and pulls. I stitch one square to one square and then one square to the two squares and so on. 

Once I have all the rows sewn, I check the length again and sometimes I sew a larger hem / seam as the square is cut weird or something so sometimes I have to take in a row or the bottom of the row is wider than the top of the row so I have to sew in the bottom a bit more etc. Just try to line up all the rows to make the quilt square. 

I then sew the top row to the second row. I sew the third row to the fourth row etc. I then sew the first and second row to the third and fourth row etc. In making so many of these, it has been a learning curve on the best way to sew it. 

Once the top is square, I put the sheet or backing material down, then the batting and then the quilt top down. I use the backing fabric or the sheet and cut it to 2 inches larger than the front of the quilt and then fold it over an inch and then fold it again over an inch onto the front of the quilt.

I cut the batting to match the top of the quilt top before folding the backing over to make the binding or edging of the quilt. I make sure it is all tight and smooth and then once I have the edges all pinned, I tie the quilt row by row and roll it as I finish the row just to keep it tight and smooth as I don't have a piece of floor open enough to lay out a king size quilt. A quilt frame would work as well but I don't have one. 

I was so happy to get this finished so I could give it to my dad on Valentines Day. I'll post some pictures of that tomorrow hopefully!

Have a Blessed Day!