Walker Wonders

Let the Quilting begin!
By: Margie Walker
This is a project I have been wanting to do for almost 6 years now! I have kept all of my T-shirts from High School, College and even post college to make into a quilt "someday!" Well that "someday" has become a reality thanks to my friend...MORGAN! She approached me last week and told me she wanted to make a quilt with me! She was surprised when I already had the exact idea for the quilt! She has never made a T-shirt quilt, so this is new to her too. But she is amazing at quilts, so it was easy for her to pick this up!!

I thought it was going to take much longer than what it really took! We started Friday night looking at all of the shirts and figuring out what size to cut them down to. After all of that we figured out what we wanted in each row and all that good stuff. We realized we had the perfect amount of shirts to make two 15 inch shirt row, two 12 inch shirt row, and one 10 inch shirt row with some six inch shirts here and there and the one big 18 inch shirt in the middle. Luckily, they were all able to be 13 inches wide! I did have to leave some shirts out, but for the love why would I want an A&M shirt on my quilt in the first place. I also left out my EFY shirts and plan to do something with those at a later time! That will be fun. Well....we started cutting and ironing the shirts. I ironed and Morgan cut. A few shirts into that process we decided we had done enough for right then and played a game with our husbands and then Andrew and I headed home.
The next day, SATURDAY, it snowed like crazy here in Ashton and Andrew and I were SNOWED in at our house. Luckily, the Schauerhamer's have a nice pick-up truck and they were able to come and get us. I needed to get this quilt DONE! When we got there, Morgan was already cutting shirts. What an amazing friend. She turned it over to me and I finished cutting the rest of the shirts.... If you are wondering what is up with my blue sleeves, I cut the back out of one of the shirts and put the sleeves on and the front of it acted like a cape! I was cool! After all the cutting we started laying out the quilt....

Layout # 1
Now if you know me, you will know I have to make sure everything looks just perfect. I put a lot of thought into my layout! Morgan was very impressed. This process took us almost 45 minutes. I kept changing shirts from one position to the next.
Can you tell the difference between the different layouts???
(start with Layout #1 and find the difference in Layout #2 and then the difference between #2 and #3 and then #3 and #4) Write what you think it is in the comment! I am curious to know! Have fun seeking and finding! In a couple days I will post my REASONING behind each change! Morgan thought they were hilarious!

Layout #2

Layout #3

Layout #4

Finally it was time to pin and sew! We started with one column and sewed all of the shirts together in the column and then went to the next column and then the next. Finally after finishing the FIFTH column we pinned the first and second column together and sewed that and then added one more column...so forth and so on! It went quite fast with both Morgan and I working on it. We did have to take care of kids in between sewings and pinnings. But her girls are just so dang cute, we didn't mind!

Throughout the day Morgan would have to come back and help me on the sewing machine! I am not an expert yet, but I am on my way! At least I am trying to sew!!!Here we are pinning the last and final column!! We usually pinned at the table, but the boys were playing a game, so we decided just to do it on the floor! We got it done!

Here I am sewing the FINAL column together! After this everything will be sewed TOGETHER! It was an exciting time.
The entire quilting process took about 7 hours. Good thing it was cold and snowy outside. What a perfect activity to do on a day like this!

And the finished product!

We are more than half way done! We still have to go shopping to find fabric for a border and the back of the quilt! Wow! Did I just do that? It is fun! I just sit back and think about all of the fun times I had in those shirts. Each one really does mean something to me!
Can you find a shirt that you and I have in common??
If so, tell me about it!!

Thanks Morgan! Can't wait for it to be completely DONE!