Alpha Xi Delta

Pictured here is a commissioned quilt comprised of many Alpha Xi Delta tshirts, all from the University of New Hampshire chapter.  Leah, the recipient, and asked only that the purple tshirt be featured in some special way.  She also relayed that she is currently into gray.  Beyond that, I was given free reign.

The finished quilt measures 79" x 95" (somewhere between full and queen) and is quilted with a large meander pattern in a gray thread called oyster shell.  As usual, the quilting is done by Rebekah of Kept in Stitches Quilting.  As usual, I can not speak highly enough of her customer service and skill.

I elected to use two grays, darker for the sashing and lighter for the border.  They are both Kona cottons, but I did not note the specific colors.  The darker gray is the same gray I always buy-- it is so luscious-- and the lighter gray seemed a good complement.  Because of the extremely bright sunlight and shadows, the colors look more purple than in actuality.  Trust me, though-- they are just gray.

On the back I have placed two of the tshirts, as I usually do.  I like these on the back because they sort of brand the quilt.  Sadly, I forgot to put on one of my labels!  Leah promised that she would tell all her friends and admirers that this creation came from me, so I'm satisfied with that.

From start to finish this quilt took me 21 hours to complete.  Seven of those hours were spent on attaching and hand finishing the binding.  I'm told that's too long, but I'm not sure I agree; 348 inches is quite a lot of binding to hand stitch!

I think Leah will be delighted.  The solid gray fabrics pull the tshirts nicely together, the quilting is immaculate, and the finished product looks fabulous.  Though Leah was expecting a much smaller quilt, I elected to make a large quilt for several reasons, chief among them that I think small quilts are somewhat pointless.

(Please note that I used a heavier interfacing for this quilt.  I have previously used Pellon sheerweight fusible interfacing; this time I used Pellon lightweight fusible interfacing.  I noticed a slight difference in the effectiveness, but not much.  The glue still didn't stick as well as I'd like.  However, the lightweight interfacing makes this nice and heavy-- good for New Hampshire winters.)