Blue Shirt Quilt

Well, a quilt block.

I finally did it! I took a pile of old shirts...

...cut them up and sorted them into colour values...

...then started a quilt!

M has more work clothing than it is possible for anyone to have. What can I say, the man loves to wear a suit. But his shirts do show wear, particularly around the collar and cuffs, so he has regular culls. He is down to 15 business shirts now. Maybe 18. He won't tell me.

I wasn't really getting on with using them up in regular sewing. I am allergic to toiles, I used a few bits for facings on dresses and linings for baskets and hats, but made no real dent in the ever-growing pile. Plus, there is a lot of fabric in one mens shirt. I only used two sleeves to make this block - it's going to be a king size quilt!

I learned a thing or two about a new (to me) concept called "colour value". Basically it means that every fabric has a hue and is darker or lighter than another fabric that it is paired with. The sorted pile of shirts is arranged by colour value with the darkest at the bottom and the lightest on top. The check is actually an outlier so I put it outside the white. 

I took the sorted pile and divided it in half, the lightest together and the darkest together. That is how I paired my fabrics. The lightest of the lights will be paired with the lightest of the darks and so on. While I love how the darkest blue pops with white, I am trying to keep the whole effect muted, or "low volume".

I admired this low volume quilt and decided to use the quilt block pattern for my quilt. I like how she has used the same two fabrics for one block and then reversed them for another block. That's what I'm planning for this. By using the same block pattern, I'm hoping that the quilt won't look like too much of a mis-mash (of old shirts).

I'm very pleased with the Ohio Star Pattern. While I have no affinity whatsoever with Ohio, quilting is an extremely popular sport in America so I don't mind a bit of American in my quilting endeavours.

Now it's time for me to carry on and make 19 more, then joining, a border, then batting, quilting, and binding. What about the backing? I might make a jelly roll stripe backing from the rest of the shirts. 2016 is shaping up to be the year of the WIP.