New To the Shop: In a Black and White World

We have something new for you in the Pattern Shop.  HERE is a link to the Shop.  You can always find the pattern shop by looking at the top of the page under the banner where it says, “Shop”.  Simply click and you’ll be there.  The pattern for this quilt is now in the pattern shop.

Without further ado, this is our newest quilt, In a Black and White World.  The quilt got its name much to the state of our world.  Everyone seems to think everything is black and white.  Wear a mask…don’t wear a mask.  Republicans are great-democrats aren’t….the list goes on and on with issues that our world seems to polarize on.  Kelli and I, we’re in favor a shade a gray…there is room to compromise on all issues..but enough of that and onto our quilt!

I cut this out when I was making my grandson Jasper’s baby quilt.  You might remember that Kayla had requested a quilt that was made with black and white striped recycled shirts.

I’ve learned that when working with shirts, it’s easier to cut two quilts out and once and only have one mess…and that’s what I did.  I cut out Jasper’s quilt pieces and then with the leftovers I cut the shirt pieces for this quilt.

I would say we used about 10 white shirts and 10 black shirts.  It took a bit to collect that many shirts.  I am a bit of a cheapskate and gave myself a budget of only being able to spend $2 per shirt.

Here you can see….
that I oriented some of the stripes vertical and some horizontal.  Sometimes the same prints landed next to each other, other times they didn’t.  I didn’t do any careful planning.  Whatever happened, happened.

I tried to make sure that the whites were white and not too cream.  I also included some that were actually grayer.  Look at the top right of the photo below.  See that gray and white stripe acting as a “black”.

A couple of the black shirts had a hint of different colored stripes.  I know one had a single line of purple through it…one had a blue.   Look carefully at the picture below and you’ll see that.

The quilting on this was simple straight line quilting.  I think it’s perfect for this quilt and know many of you tackle machine quilting on your domestic machine will love seeing this as you can easily do it!!

If you’re looking for a pattern for a wedding quilt and don’t know what to make the couple, I think this quilt is perfect.  Kalissa who is in her 20s loved it.  She’s a Farmhouse decorator and this works well with the theme.  It is an understated quilt with simple lines.  If you have a couple of weddings, you could easily get two quilts from the 20 shirts.  That makes them affordable too.

For the backing, I found a fabric in my stash.  I think I had bought it from Quilted Twins sometime ago.  I loved the circles on the back…a fun contrast to the lines of the front.

I didn’t have enough of the circle fabric so did an improv back with the black strip.  The fabric is a simple tone on tone back.  The “lines” in it is the machine quilting lines.

The binding was all scrappy white shirt fabrics.  Many of the strips were only 15″ so it took lots of pieces to make enough binding for this 88 1/2″ x 97 1/2″ quilt.  The quilt can easily be made larger or smaller by adding or subtracting rows.

This quilt is going to live at Kalissa’s house.  She really doesn’t need another quilt.  I’ve gifted her so many…but she squealed over it and I’m a softie.  I can see it looking awesome in her living room too!!

Again, HERE is a link to the Shop.  You can always find the pattern shop by looking at the top of the page under the banner where it says, “Shop”.  Simply click and you’ll be there.  The pattern for this quilt is there and available as a download.

Thanks so much for supporting us as we design our quilts.  Keep checking back for new designs.