Your very own Kappa Ka-Quilt

Chad Ocho-chino (Fox news style) is being all sessy on Dancing with the Stars, and I just outlined the ladder for all the pages in the 2010 FW Cats program, but I really wish I was working on finishing my first quilting endeavor - my Kappa t-shirt quilt.

For Christmas this past year, I asked Eddie's mom, Sarah to help me make a quilt out of all the Kappa t-shirts I will never wear again. So, a few weeks after Christmas, we went to Van Buren and got all the necessary fabric, quilting accessories and tools in order for me to get started on my first quilt. I already had the sewing machine as it was a gift from my grandmother, but Sarah bought me all the fabric, a few cutting patterns (I'm not sure if that is the right word for the clear acrylic squares that you use when quilting), and some backing to make the shirts a little sturdier.

The first lesson of quilting I learned is that your iron is your best friend. The second lesson I learned is that measuring even a fraction of an inch off can mess up your entire project. And the third, most important, lesson I learned is that sewing machines are bitches. Mine never wants to stay threaded, I'm always tangling the bobbin and I can't figure out what all these sewing machine terms mean. WTF does tension mean? Except for the fact that there is tension between me and my sewing machine, I can't really apply the term to the work I am doing. 

So I begin cutting up all my old Kappa shirts that I never want to wear again. Sleep on them, yes. Wear, no. I'm cutting them in 12.5 x 12.5 squares, so that once they are sewn into my quilt, they will be perfect one foot squares. I'm saving the front pieces of the shirts for a special quilt square where I will merge them all into one. I cut the backing into 12.5 x 12.5 squares also, and using my new best friend, Iron, I affixed them all together. 

I cut out stripping to go between the panels, and I cut those at a predetermined width (decided upon by the VB quilt shop) and at the 12.5" length like my squares. Once I have three squares sewn together with stripping in between them, I sewed a continuous strip across the top of all of them. Then I can start all over, creating a new row of 3. 

Overall, there will be 12 squares in my finished quilt -- 11 whole t-shirt squares, and one square with all the front pocket pieces sewn together. Check out my progress! 

As soon as I get my sewing machine back from Nanny (I surrendered it back to her so she could make a curtain for her kitchen window -- look for a post about that later) I plan on finishing it up so that Eddie's mom can take it to get quilted. I can't wait to use the finished product. At least then my expensive-ass t-shirts will get a little more use then they would in a drawer somewhere.