Upcycled Baby Quilt

Finished!

I made this quilt for my son using a bunch of his old t-shirts and onesies.  It was my way of holding onto those memories a little longer in a way we could all enjoy. 

I made it basically like you would make a t-shirt quilt except I opted not to fuse the shirts because I wanted to use really thick batting to give it a really poufy look and wanted to retain the "give" and stretch of the t-shirts as much as possible. 

From each onesie or t-shirt (I used 48) I cut two 6 inch squares.  Then I separated them into lights and darks and paired coordinating fabrics into four patch blocks.  THEN I spent about 3-4 hours arranging them on my design wall in a way that made me happy (basically keeping similar colors adjacent as much as possible).  After that I sewed the four patch blocks together.

Sewing with the unfused knits was a little tricky and involved some patience, but I wasn't too worried about everything being perfectly aligned because I figured the batting would disguise any irregularities and I was mostly right.  I also couldn't stick to a strict 1/4 inch seam because the knit kept getting pulled into the machine so it was more like 3/8 of an inch.  The finished quilt is 44" x 66".  I used two layers of the highest loft batting I could find and tied it in the corners of each block using a coordinating yarn from my stash.  I bound it with satin blanket binding (just cause it saves me a step and I'm lazy like that).  The finished quilt has the feel of a comforter.  Theoretically, the blocks should tighten up a little more after it's washed and dried and should make it look nice and fluffy (I'll let you know how it washes).

My son loves it.  He like looking at all the different images on the front and pointing out all the animals he knows.  AND he likes the back.  I wasn't sure what I was going to use as the backing fabric until I got to JoAnn's, but as soon as I saw it I knew there was no turning back.

Buzz always wins.  :)

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