Sports Jersery T-Shirt Quilt

I started this quilt over two years ago, and FINALLY finished it for the recipient.  Now I get to share it with you!

I made this quilt for a young man who played sports throughout high school and college.  He wanted to remember those years, but didn't feel the need to keep wearing shirts and jerseys from high school and college.  He delivered more than 30 shirts to me, and I got to work!

I started by washing and drying all the shirts.  All of my quilts are designed to be machine washable, so I wanted to make sure anything that might happen to the shirts would happen before I started the quilt.  One of the jerseys was ruined in the wash - the lettering fell off!  The rest came out just fine.

Next, I cut the shirts into 12.5" squares (to make 12" finished squares).  Two of the shirts has a somewhat larger design, so I made a double-sized block that combined a larger design with a smaller one.  I layered the thinnest jerseys over t-shirt knit recycled from the plain backs of other shirts.

I laid everything out in my living room, and arranged and rearranged until I liked how the colors were distributed.  Then I got to sewing!  Large 12" blocks generally come together easily, but because all the fabrics were different - some silky, some thick, and all with different amount of stretch - I did a LOT of pinning to make sure they would come together nicely.  I don't know many quilters who work with high-performance athletic materials!

I chose royal purple minkie for the backing, and a thick batting.  This quilt is designed for ultimate comfort!

To quilt the layers together, I sewed a 2" plus sign in each of the corners.  This allows the quilt to be able to stretch, but still keeps everything from moving around during washing.

I bound the quilt with black jersey knit.  This step took me over a year...it might be time to learn machine binding.  Toddlers don't help the process either :)

I really love how this quilt came out.  It's fun, super comfortable and snuggly, and a great way to hold onto fond memories (without wearing your old jerseys in public).

Bonnie Projects

Don't trash those Christmas cards!

I love sending and receiving Christmas cards!  I especially love the ones with photos of the family - it's so fun to see families grow and change throughout the years.

So of course I have trouble throwing them away after Christmas.  They're pictures!  Memories!

Instead, I found a way that I can keep them around.  Make little books!

I took a regular three-hole punch, and centered two of the holes on the long side of the card.  Punch!

Then I corralled all the cards onto one-inch book rings (Staples had them in pretty colors, which I couldn't pass up).

I used my Silhouette to cut a cute cover out of some scrapbooking cardstock, so we'd be able to remember which year they came from.

And that was it!  All the punching and organizing took about 15 minutes.  The book rings were 12 for $4.39, so my grand total came to about 75 cents per year.  Next Christmas, I'll display these in a basket somewhere so people can look through them.

You might also be interested in these posts:

Christmas Card Display
Wine cork fire starters
Christmas Cocktails

Bonnie Projects

Wine cork fire starters

This the gift was the quickest and most budget-friendly yet!

Every time we drink a bottle of wine, I toss the wine cork into a bowl, promising Tommy that one day I'll find something to do with them.  Now I finally did!  My grandmother was doing this at Thanksgiving, not sure where she got the idea from, sorry!

All you do is stuff a container with wine corks (I used a mason jar for added cuteness), and top it off with rubbing alcohol.  My one-quart mason jar, stuffed with corks, used about 16 oz. of alcohol.

To make it pretty, I tied a ribbon and label to the top of the jar.

aren't the corks pretty in there?

I gifted this to my in-laws, who have a wood-burning fireplace.  All they have to do is light one or two below their fire, and it should start right up!

It took me about five minutes to make this, and most of that was getting the bow pretty enough to photograph.  The only thing I bought was the alcohol for $2, and I only used half of it.  Cute gift for $1 and five minutes of time?  Awesome!!!  And the in-laws liked it, too!

**Be sure to practice fire safety and keep this away from the fire!


You might also be interested in these posts:

Ticket stub collection frame
Lanterns filled with ornaments
Upcycled sweater pillow

Bonnie Projects

Refinished Porch Light

Now that the yard is pretty and the front door is all spiffed up, the porch light is looking a little sad in comparison.

Nope, it's not dirty or faded, it's actually painted to look like this.

My first thought was to just replace it.  I collected up a number of pretty sconces on a pinterest board, but at $30 - $300, I wasn't chomping at the bit to just order one.

The current fixture happens to have this cool feature where it only comes on in the dark, so I can turn it on when I leave for work, and it'll welcome me home if I come home after dark 12 hours later, without wasting electricity all day.  Only the fancy models have this feature, so then we'd be in the $150 - $300 range.  Yikes.

I figured if we were going to replace it anyways, it might be OK to try refinishing it, with the potential of ruining it.

Tommy flipped the breaker and removed the fixture from the house.  I taped over all the electric parts, like the wires and the daylight sensor.

I bought this cool spray paint from the hardware store (Rustoleum Hammered Paint and Primer) - they do something fancy to it where it creates a hammered texture.  Not only does this forgive any dents or wear and tear on the item (that high gloss paint would highlight), but it looks pretty cool, too.  It was $8, so on the high end for spray paint, but cheap-o for a new light fixture.

I didn't have to, but I primed the fixture first.  (Before buying the spray paint - I didn't realize I wouldn't need it)

Then I sprayed three coats of the hammered finish spray paint, which ended up being the entire can.

 

I let it dry for a while, then discovered the underside needed a few extra spritzes.  I had to wait 48 hours from the first spray session, so this added days to the project.  (If you spray a second coat between 1 and 48 hours after the first coat, it can cause wrinkles in the paint)

It came out SO WELL!  The black makes the fixture contrast well with the brick on the house, and ties it in with the handrail.

 

 

 

Eight bucks for a brand new looking fixture sure beats $30 - $300!  Plus, the whole project took about 20 minutes of hands-on time.  Drying time added more hours, but that's OK with me.

Bonnie Projects

Caribbean Inspired Scrap Pillows

We took our honeymoon to the Caribbean in January...after months and months of cold dreary days winter days, we were blown away by the bold and beautiful sun-drenched colors of the Caribbean!

Savannah Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI

I just had to bring some of that joy back home with us!

I've been aiming us towards a loosely-defined beach inspired living room.  Our initial inspiration for the room were some palm tree coasters Tommy picked up on his first trip to St. John, USVI.  We love that Tommy Bahama feel they have.  That said, I've been avoiding in-your-face beach stuff like shells and starfish pillows - they're a little much for suburban DC.  I also found some glass coasters at Anthropologie over Christmas and had to bring those home, too.

Over-the-top beach is too much, but beachy colors are OK, right?

I saw these pillows in the West Elm catalog the day after we got home - they were so whimsical and fun!  The colors weren't really doing it for me though.  Time to DIY my own knockoff scrappy pillows!

Lucky for me, I have a quilter Mom who has been making hundreds of sunset quilt kits (buy one here!).

that snorkeler is me!

The 12" blocks she sells leave scraps that are far too useful-looking to throw away.  I called her up and "ordered" an shipment of assorted scraps.  Thanks Mom!

I pressed and starched all the pieces to make them behave nice, then I cut 1/2" strips on the bias, at least 5" long.  I planned ahead to let the edges fray a little in the wash - cutting the fabric on the bias keeps the fraying from getting out of control.

I did this for all the fabrics she sent me, and ended up with a pretty fabulous collection!

Next I cut four 5" strips of muslin.  The goal is an 18" pillow, so 18"/4 = 4.5", but then you have to add 1/4" on each side for the seam allowance, which gets you up to 5".  I cut the muslin strips longer than necessary, since I was sewing the colorful strips on at an angle.

I laid down a variety of strips with controlled randomness.  At first it didn't look right, so I called Mom!  I was using too much red.  Narrowing the colors to blue, green, and yellow helped a lot.

Something else wasn't quite right.  Mom came to the rescue again to remind me that I had forgotten to leave white space.  Duh!

I tried just sewing the strips on, with no pins or guides, but that was a disaster.  They were crooked and messy, and it wasn't working.  I also tried using the same color thread for them all, and that look bad too.

Instead, I measured where each strip should start, then pinned the strips down.

 

I used five different colors of thread, matching as close to the various colors as possible - yellow, turquoise, sage, navy, and cerulean.  Much better!

Once the panels were done, I trimmed off the excess, lined up the stripes, and sewed the panels together.

Then I squared up my pillow front and cut it down to 18.5" square.  At this time, I also cut an 18.5" muslin square for the pillow back.

I sewed the front and back together, and installed an invisible zipper along one side.  This was a complete pain, and I wouldn't do it again!  Save yourself the trouble and just make a pocket for the pillow form!!!

I ran them through a vigorous wash cycle with a Shout Color Catcher (so those pretty blue dyes wouldn't ruin the muslin) to get the frayed look I was going for.  Bright color + fraying = Caribbean, right?

I inserted the pillow form (a higher-quality one I got on sale at JoAnn), and was done!  Oh yeah, except then I made two more...

This project took sooo loooong, but most of that time was spent cutting strips from 35 fabrics (I have lots of leftovers), getting the colors right, and installing those stupid zippers.  Live and learn.  Along the way, I also had a little accident with my rotary cutter.  Those buggers are sharp, so keep your fingers out of the way!  My pillows probably cost about $15 each, but took a bazillion hours.

In the end, it was all worth it. 

I'm not sure my pillows are much cheaper than West Elm's, but I adore them!  Even better, my husband hasn't stopped talking about them since I put them in the living room.  He says they're colorful and fun, yet soft.  Men are all about functionality - I'm glad he keeps me in line so our house isn't just pretty, it's comfortable, too.

And to top it off, the cheerful colors remind me of a happy honeymoon and keep the dreary weather away a little :)

I'm considering offering these in my Etsy shop!  Let me know in the comments if they're something you'd consider buying one day.  Do you get inspired by items in stores and make your own, but even better?

Bonnie Projects

Wedding Wednesday: Pennants

When dreaming about my wedding (pre-engagement), I imaged a rustic affair, maybe even set on our farm in Alabama.  For a whole variety of reasons, that never came to be, but I made sure I still got some of the touches!  Like pennants!

I've said it once and I'll say it again - I didn't want to be throwing away a bunch of stuff after the wedding.  I wanted to make choices in a way that things could be reused afterwards.

Pennants are so whimsical and fun, I just love them.  Better yet, my Mom thought they were cool too, and offered to make them!  I'm guessing she never realized she would make 400 feet of them...

She was super nice and took great photos along the way so I'd be able to share a wedding pennants tutorial with you :)

Together we collected a ton of different coral fabrics - all cottons.  Keeping them cotton meant that we could eventually take them apart and make them into something cute, like a quilt.  I think we had 35 fabrics altogether.  She also saved remnants from the cloth napkins to use.

Mom pressed all the fabrics to make them easy to work with. 

Check out her crazy iron with pop-out feet!

She started by cutting strips of fabric 8" wide, with smooth edges.

Then, from those strips, she cut the triangles using a rotary cutter with a wavy blade.  You can't use it with a ruler like you normally would, so she had to measure the cuts and do her best to keep them straight.  For the double-sided pennants, she laid fabrics back to back and cut them together so the scallops would match up.  Wavy edges prevent fraying, so she didn't have to hem all those edges.

The triangles measured 8" tall by 6" wide.  

She tucked the top of each triangle between the folds of extra-wide double-fold bias tape and stitched the layers together.  She didn't leave any space between the triangles.  She used white tape for most of the pennants, but used a coral pink for the ones destined for the cake table and seating card table - guests would be up close and personal with them so we wanted them as pretty as possible.

To avoid ironing them on wedding day, she carefully folded the pennant chains so the triangles all stacked up.  She sandwiched them between two pieces of cardboard cut into triangles, and wrapped the whole bunch in cling wrap, making sure to label the length.  To the front, I attached a diagram of where they were supposed to be hung at the reception.

I had given her specific measurements for all the lengths we required, and whether they should be one or two sided.  She added an extra 10% of length to allow them to hang down in pretty swoops.  Then she added another few feet just in case.  Because they're made of fabric, any extra length could just be snipped off and tossed aside if need be.

They came out PERFECT!  They were exactly how I had imagined them, and gave the plain white space a really fun and festive feel.  The venue was pretty plain, so we used them everywhere - cake table, escort card table, bar, dock, rafters, photo booth - you name it!

Pennants made a cute photo booth backdrop

The day after the wedding, my Mom, bridesmaids, and aunts (thanks guys!) helped me straighten them all out and fold them up nice.

Don't forget to fold them up nice after the wedding!

I have plans to hang some in my craft room, keep a few for a little girls room one day, make some into a quilt, and who knows what else! 

I sent a strand to some of my best friends for their little girls room.  And I just lent the rest of the collection to a friend to use in her wedding!  Needless to say, I'm definitely making good on that re-use idea.

Reuse wedding pennants in a little girls room

Bonnie Projects