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custom quilts - need advise


Laurie

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I had a lady call me today with a request to make quilts from her deceased husband dress shirts. They are not 100% cotton but a cotton/poly blend. She wants 4 quilts 50 x 70 so she can give one to each of her adult children. She wants a start to finish job ~ cutting, piecing, quilting and binding. I have a good idea of what to charge.....I've done a bit of research on custom quilts.

First of all, how would this type of fabric quilt up?

And, if there aren't enough shirts to make this many quilts, what kind of filler fabric would I use?

And, what would I put on the back?

Thanks for any and all help. I still need to call her with a "Yes, I can or a No, can't" and an "if I do, it will cost this much".

btw - I don't even have my Millennium yet. It arrives on the 20th!!!!!

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Hi,

I have actually made two of these out of my dad's shirts. One for my brother and one for myself. I used a star pattern and the shirt fabric for the points. I used black for the background in my brothers and an off-white for mine. As the shirts have all been washed, just be sure to wash your fabric (not sure if you routinely do that or not). My Dad restored John Deere tractors and gave one to my brother so I used a picture of Dad on the tractor in the label. Not sure what to tell you about the cost for this.

Hope this helps.

Alyn

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Since there are points on dress shirt collars, stars sound like an interesting idea, plus the stripes in shirts can go in different directions like spinning around. Maybe you could utilize the pockets in some way to put cherished items across the bottom if it's a wall hanging, even close the pockets with buttons off the shirt. If he used cufflinks, then perhaps you can put some buttonholes, small ones, through the whole thickness of the quilt to put some of these onto the shirt pieces. If you knew what colors he wore for slacks or jackets, then you could combine these with the shirt fabric, like maybe grey or kacki. If he wore ties, then you could include a couple of those in the design too at the intersections of block sashing or the centers of stars. If there is any monogramming, then be sure to include that too. Someone on the chat last week talked about doing an envelope label for the back and putting a cloth printed letter inside utilizing the Quilted Treasures fabric sheets for printing. You could make your label from a shirt pocket and close it with one of the buttons. Then I would keep the quilt stitching very tailored and geometric. Can't wait to see what you design and fabricate. Good luck.

Vicki

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I'd ask the client if she would like to put a light colored oxford cloth fabric on the back. Another option would be to put a tropical print on the back for his alternative vacation lifestyle.

There was a booth at Road to California that specializes in Hawaiian, tropical prints called Beyond the Reef, www.beyondthereefpatterns.com. Unfortunately they don't have photos of the fabrics on the web, but I'm sure that if you contact them, they will be happy to make some suggestions. I loved these people in their booth because they are so happy and lightspirited. This one print I have has dancing bananas on it, but they have some great shirt type prints also.

Vicki

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Hi,

I recently made a quilt much like what you are describing. One of my DDs inlaws died in November, and her mother in law asked me to make the quilt - a lap quilt. It was sort of a PITA, but I was motivated to make it because I knew it would mean so much to this man's widow.

I had a trash bag of his clothes and I was asked to just sew squares together using pieces of as many of his clothes as I could. I had several blue cotton/poly dress shirts, plaid wool-like/loose weave shirts, chami-cloth shirts, tee shirts, khaki slacks, several pairs of jeans, handkerchiefs, silk boxers - black with bright red lips (!), Hawaiian shirts, a sweater with a logo, and a pair of socks with shamrocks. Can you imagine???

Well, I cut 3 1/2 inch squares out of the clothes. Most I put on a thin cotton iron-on stabilizer (I bought it to embroider on baby clothes - nice and soft and washes well), then I made lots of 4-patches. I bought blue, (her favorite color) small flowered flannel for a 6 or maybe 8 inch wide border and used that for the binding, too. I bought a different piece of blue flannel with large flowers, that coordinated with the border and binding fabric. I used Quilter's Dream medium (is that the Select?) poly batting. I SID around all of the squares and did a small-medium meander in the border. The quilt weighed a ton! Thank goodness it was only about 61 X 72 inches when it was finished.

The final "touch" was in the upper left corner of the blocks (not on the border) I sewed a chami-cloth pocket that I removed from a shirt. I also put the flap on the quilt, so the pocket and flap could button together, just as if it was still on the shirt. I then put one of his blue bandana handkerchiefs folded up in the pocket.

Over-all, it was not a pretty quilt at all, but the widow couldn't stop crying, and she wrapped the quilt around her, and then she used his hankie from the pocket on the quilt to dry her eyes. She also wrote me a beautiful thank you card. My daughter and her mother-in-law were also quite happy with the outcome, as neither one could picture what it would look like.

Since I don't do this professionally, it was for family, and I sew on a Bernina (I'm a Millie wanna-be), I asked just for the cost of the supplies, flannel, thread and batting. I spent about $100 on these supplies. My daughter's mother-in-law (who asked me to make this quilt) sent me a check for $250. I spent 22 hours making the quilt, not including several trips to the LQS - time and gas. The LQS was about a 45 minute drive, one way.

I hope this explanation (sorry it turned out to be so l o n g ) is helpful.

Sandy

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Laurie,

Bless your heart, girl, you already have customers and don't even have that Millie in the house yet. You are a fireball. :P

Our LQS took on the task of making 2 lap quilts for a young widower's young daughters using the mother's clothes. It was a mixed bag, for sure. Lots of different fabrics and certainly not all cotton. It was really just 5-inch squares.

The first time I saw the quilts or heard the story, the owner of the LQS was looking for a volunteer (??) to quilt the 2 quilts. She had used 2 backings, one was red with stars and the other was blue with stars for the 2 different quilts.

Anytime you mix up fabrics in a quilt, there is always the chance that the intersections will be bumpy. So I did a simple stars, loops and hearts on the 2 quilts. I made sure that I looped around the intersections rather than driving through them. It was slow going since some of the fabric was stretchy. I did not want puckers. But it was not too bad. I probably spent about 2 hours on each quilt.

Something like this is hard to price.

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Thank you all for responding. (I just got back from a retreat.....hence the delay).

Linda and Sandra, you both gave me a real good idea of time invested and quilting involved.....I'm still undecided if I want to take this on right now. I will just be getting my machine and learning on it.....I may see if she is in any big hurry :-)

I'll post the outcome of this story at a later date.......

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Hi, Laurie. I was checking out your web page and noticed that you live in Vallejo! Would you believe I lived in Novato for 14 years before moving to Alaska? I LOVE NOVATO!! It is a lovely place; so so pretty, and so close to Vallejo, right next door. I moved to Alaska in 1976, but I have visited that area often. Next time I'm down there, I'm doing a wine country tour with my sisters. Nice to meet you. Please post photos or news of your progress on this quilt. :)

Shana

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I am planning on making some quilts out of my DFILs shirts and blue jeans. He passed away in Nov. Not all the shirts are cotton but I am going to use them anyway. I will be making several quilts, one for each of my two daughers and one for my husband.

I will likely use some sort of star patterns. The jeans and flannel shirts will be a rag quilt with a flannel back.

I also have several boxes of my sisters clothes. She passed away about 3 years ago and will be making a quilt or two out of those for my other sister, my mom and maybe one for me. Again they are not all cotton clothes.

For filler fabrics I will likely choose a color of Kona cotton for each of these quilts.

I will be documenting my process from photos of the actual garmets I begin with to the finished quilts.

As for charging I would say somewhere between 300 - 500 depending on the design you use on these.

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Good ideas there.......thanks!

Since my machine only arrived yesterday (yay!) I will see if my customer can wait until I am more comfortable on it before I tackle her quilts........

I was actually thinking of 9" squares sewn together with filler blocks where I needed them.......

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I also made a quilt from shirts for a friend of mine after her DH passed and I used the shirt fronts to make 8" square blocks. Set them on point and then used some of the pockets (with snaps from western shirts) and put them on in the middle of every other square and mixed them so that the pocket was never on the shirt it went with. My living room floor was full of squares and pockets for the better part of the week that I pieced it together. Then I used the backs of the shirts for the back of the quilt. Just took the biggest rectangle that I could get from each shirt. Sewed them together into long strips and then squared each strip up and then sewed the strips together. I didn't even try to keep them a consistant size and I think it turned out really well. He had several shirts from Mexico that had the embrodery on them and I used those strips in the back as random spacers. I hope that this makes sense. Anyway, She was really very pleased and cherishes the quilt. That is what is important.

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My girls are only 6 and 10 but I have saved ALL of their Christmas dresses.

I plan on doing something like this, maybe in a crazy quilt style, with all of

those pretty velvets and shiney fabrics. Using the buttons and bows and

even the ties / belts to embelish the quilt. I will also put in photo blocks of

their Christmas photo of them in the dresses. I think this would be a

great graduation / or wedding type of gift someday..... I think they would

really chereish it, know all that I do to make quilts!! And it would be fun to

make and go through all of those items again...... I like the idea of using

the pockets too - I will remember that one!

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