Skip to main content

Xtreme Quilting

By
While I was home the past three weeks (I'm now in California, and starting work in a few days), I worked night and day on my t-shirt quilt, which ended up being a much bigger enterprise than I had initially suspected. My special thanks go to Mrs. Geri Thomas for letting me borrow her sewing machine for two weeks!

I cut out fifty 15" squares from old t-shirts (using a total of 48 t-shirts), ironed fusible interface onto the back of each square, and then sewed all the squares together with 3" of navy sashing in between. The final dimensions for my 5x5 square quilt are around 86"x86", a full/queen size quilt. Unfortunately I was only able to finish one side of the quilt before I left, but I did get pretty far on the other side. Since I don't have a sewing machine here and it's a lot of fabric to ship, I will have to wait until I return home in August to try to finish the quilt.


The raw materials: t-shirts, fusible interfacing, and sashing (navy cloth) - plus, of course, yards and yards of thread!


Midway progress on one side: the shirts are now in strips which need to be sewn together into the final shape


One complete side!

The other side will be exactly similar in size and layout, but with different shirts. Although making the quilt has been an interesting and challenging project, I don't think I'm quite ready to take on any more sewing projects in the near future.

In addition to working on the quilt, I started organizing my scrapbooking materials to try to catch up a bit on my large backlog of scrapbooking. I plan to have my photos and materials shipped out to me here so I can work on them. My last scrapbook was for senior year of high school, so I have four years of materials to work with!


A sample of the stuff piled in my room...

I hope to start my cooking series next week. I didn't want to cook while I was home since I didn't want to tempt my family into eating pie while they're dieting! Aren't I a good daughter?

Next up: Stanford graduation!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age"

By
Reyner Banham 's Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960) is an engaging overview of the important theoretical developments of the early 20th century leading up to the "International Style" of the 1930s-40s.  Banham does a fairly good job, in my opinion, of avoiding excessive editorializing, although he has a clear viewpoint on the Modern Movement and finishes with a strong conclusion.  In opposition to his teacher, Nikolaus Pevsner , whose own history of modernism came out in 1936, Banham dismantled the " form follows function " credo that became the stereotype of modernism, arguing instead that formalism (a preoccupation with style and aesthetics) was an important, if not overriding, concern of Modern architects.  Two sections of the book struck me in particular: his analysis of Le Corbusier's famous book Vers une architecture (Toward a [new] architecture) from 1923, and his Conclusion (chapter 22), where he breaks the link between functionali...
1 comment
Read more

A Voter's Guide: Local Elections 2016

By
I spent a long time researching different local races and some of the ballot measures here in Santa Clara County.  In case you're on the fence or want some further information to guide your voting, I've compiled my thoughts here. Selection Methodology I have three tiers for selecting  candidates. 1. Alignment on Issues:  I will choose the candidate who is most closely aligned with me on the issues I think are important. 2. Experience and Education:  All other things being equal, I will choose the candidate who has the most knowledge of what is required for the position, either through education, previous experience, or active participation in similar positions. 3. Women and Minorities:  All other things being equal (#1 and #2 above), I will choose candidates who are women or minorities in order to increase the diversity of voices of our elected officials.  It's my own personal form of affirmative action. The Issues We're fortunate enough to li...
Post a Comment
Read more

Housing Affordability in the Bay Area: An Architectural Perspective

By
The Bay Area's housing crisis has gained a status akin to the weather: We can't help but mention it whenever two or more Bay Area residents are gathered together, and we feel there's equally nothing we can do to change it.  But instead of the general praise given to the area's weather, there is general despair about the state of housing.  At least among the twenty-something set and construction industry professionals who make up my peers and colleagues, there are few answers and much criticism for the way we live here.  It's not dense enough, public transportation is a sham, and housing costs are outrageous.  Many of my peers agree that they would not live here at all except that their spouse/significant other works in the tech industry, without whose salary they could not afford to live here, but whose worth is so valued here that it makes little sense economically to live elsewhere.  Here in the Peninsula it's just as bad as in San Francisco ("the city...
Post a Comment
Read more