How many librarians does it take...

You would not believe how long it takes to work on a 7 1/2 foot by 9 1/2 foot quilt.

FOREVER!

The idea, the design, was ruminating in my mind last Fall. In December I began the arduous task of interfacing and measuring and cutting up all of my favorite old t-shirts. That was Step 1. In December. That month, I also picked out the colors of fabric for the inbetween parts - charcoal with a subtle pattern and deep red with dark flecks in it. These would, in essence, create the cross-beams between each shirt square. I began cutting those out, as well, while on vacation at my sister's in Arizona.

In January, I bought a sewing machine. And thus began Step 2 of the quilt -- sewing all the t-shirt squares, strips, and tiny squares together in rows and then one by one sewing all the rows together. 8 rows of shirts. 9 of the cross-beams.

I almost quit in March, when I realized that it wouldn't/couldn't be perfect. I messed up one cross-beam row. Didn't align at the corners with all the other squares.

I left it sit, my sewing machine idle, for at least 6 weeks. I was immersed in a huge scrapbooking project. Once that was done, I had nothing left to work on, except this ginormous quilt, hanging out unfinished in the corner.

I got the top part finished in...well...May, I think. At that point, I believe I had done the hardest part.

That is, until last Thursday, when I delved into it again, after a long break. I headed to my parents' house and swore I couldn't leave until it was completed. I needed my mom's expertise in sewing and her help with the calculations (I really suck at numbers)..

After 3 trips to the store for more supplies, we began. Step 3 -- quilt assembly.
Assembly...doesn't seem like it would take too much time. But this is what I found that it entails.
~ Taping the fabric backing to the floor
~ Laying on top of that, the batting, or stuffing, for the quilt
~ Cutting and sewing the batting in order to match the size of this gigantic quilt
~ Putting it back on the floor, on top of the backing
~ Laying the quilt top (all of my t-shirts and what I had finished up until this point) on the batting
~ Pinning all 3 layers together - using probably around 200 pins...all of the ones I had, plus what mom had in the house
~ Using embroidery floss to making stitches through all 3 layers to hold the quilt together when the pins are removed (12 skeins of charcoal floss, 4 of red, 1 of white): Note that each stitch is actually a double stitch, requiring double the amount of floss and time. Five stitches in each of 48 t-shirt squares; 3 in each of 100+ charcoal strips; 1 in each of 63 tiny red squares.
~ Removing all the pins
~ Flipping the quilt over and tying knots in every single stitch
~ Putting whole quilt on floor, trimming the edges and preparing for attaching the binding

All that is left, Step 4, is binding the quilt together - which makes the edges look nice and holds it all together. That is what will happen tomorrow.

December to August. That's how long it takes to make a quilt. Without Mom and Dad's help this week, it would never have been completed.