Shirt Quilt Round One

Okay, so here's the plan I have for the shirts Laura and I collected to save into quilts. The first quilt will be made with my favorite block, the feathered Radiant Star!

I have made so many of these blocks in the past I can make them in my sleep. I decided that shirts, while humble, can still be recycled into something great - like be in a quilt like this! What do you think? Will it work?

To try it out, I had to make a sample block. I can make one block from scratch in 2 hours - now granted, I'm pretty quick at these because I like them so much and have made probably 50 in the past 2 years.

So, I took 3 shirts I liked (teal, rusty orange and yellow). I cut and pieced them into a wonderful block. But I wasn't too sure if I liked the end result. My mind was expecting more "scrappy" than "planned" but I was planning the colors.

And, using muslin as the background. I'm not sure I like the muslin by itself. Maybe need to use one of the neutral shirts we picked out. But I need to be careful not to have too much pattern - the eye needs a place to rest!


It took me a long time to get the block created in EQ5 for the quilt layout above. The EQ5 file is so complex that Internet Explorer kept closing the program on me. After several attempts I was able to finish a block drawing to make the quilt layout. My block sample is based on a 15" feathered Radiant Star, while the EQ5 quilt has 18.5" blocks.

I'm still debating on the right sashing for this quilt. I am thinking of using either flying geese blocks, hanging diamonds or squares, or leaving it as shown with Ohio Star blocks set in the sashing.
I told my friend Laura that one block didn't even make a dent in the 3 fabrics from these shirts so there is plenty of fabric left for the second (and third!) projects... Second quilt planned is a Burgoyne Surrounded. Third project is still to be determined!

Since I've recently finished up my other projects, it's off to the cutting board for feathered star #2!