On to sewing all the t-shirt pieces together. After choosing a background fabric, the first thing I did was to sew strips along the sides.

This is where the not measuring or doing much math came in. My goal was to section the design into blocks and sew each of those together. If the final design came out a little different in size than the original layout, then so be it. I guessed at the amount to go in between these first few and trimmed it back after I laid them all out on the floor.

After I sewed the strips on without measuring the length, I trimmed them to fit on the sides. This sort of sewing can get you into trouble if you stretch the t-shirt out to make something fit. I did check my measurements occasionally to make sure that the sections would line up in the end. There are a few more seams than are really necessary, but because of the way I did the assembly, it just worked out that way. I don’t think any of it will really show when the whole design is quilted. All the focus will be on the t-shirts.

“I remember when I got this shirt. The race was a toughie.” or words to that effect. “Gee I get to cuddle up in my childhood.” Whoopie!

Too long to see the whole thing when it was hanging on my design wall, so I had to break it up for you. Bet you can’t even spot those extra seams. It looks floaty, doesn’t it? And in the end, my measurements were only about an inch and a half off what I planned. Not bad.

I’ll be putting a small border of the same interior fabric around the outside tomorrow. The plan is to bring it all up to a dimension divisible by 3 so I can do a 3 inch double checkerboard border before I do another plain border and then the binding. It’s taken me longer than expected, because I’ve been working on several other projects at once. Typical! Including another quilt top that I had to do before the fabrics were no longer available.

Part 3 will be coming in another month…probably. That’s what happens when I make 2 quilt tops and gut the guest room at the same time!