Saluting Our Armed Forces

Gratitude in Every Stitch 💙🤍❤️ A shirt from a corporate quilt that helps us to pay tribute to the armed forces on Memorial Day. We’re remembering those that paid the ultimate sacrifice. Thank you service men and women: Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. Freedom isn’t free.

The quilting design repeated all over the quilt is Trinity Knots in honor of the recipients Irish heritage.

Unique Gift Quilts: Personalized Comfort for Every Occasion

Looking for a retirement gift that truly stands out? Forget the gold watch—go for the gift of memories! 🕰️✨ This custom t-shirt quilt, a retirement present for a distinguished CEO and ad exec, encapsulates a career’s worth of achievements and memories, all woven into a tapestry that’s as unique as his contributions. Whether it’s celebrating a CEO or any cherished team member, let’s create something that says more than ‘thank you’—let’s make it unforgettable. Because after all, isn’t that what a lifetime of hard work deserves? 🌟

The quilting design is a trinity knot in celebration of his Irish heritage.

Comfort and Care for a Healthcare worker

John is a retired MD, now commercial actor, who has a passion for acting. In addition to his Florida trips for commercial shoots, John came up with a special way to show his gratitude on Mother’s Day. Due to the fact that he knew the comfort requirements of his wife who is a dedicated hospital RN, John came to us to design a t-shirt quilt that is unique, warm, and comfortable.

The quilt, with the royal blue minky fabric for its back and borders, is unique in the softness and warmth, which is ideal for the cold times. Its Blocky style, with everything symmetrically aligned, demonstrates a sharp eye for detail and order—qualities that both John and his wife appreciate a lot.

By personalizing the gift, we embroidered her nickname “Corky” at the bottom, thus, this is not just a gift, but a memorable keepsake. The quilt has the meander quilting pattern that connects the design elements smoothly.

Soft comfort for one who has dedicated her life to comforting others.

Memorial Day Quilt: celebrate our Heroes with Handcrafted Comfort

🇺🇸 This Memorial Day, we’re proud to showcase a special tribute quilt made by Shari a retired RN in north Georgia for a family member who serves with distinction. Originally brought to us just for quilting, it now features majestic eagles flying in grey thread, symbolizing courage and freedom. Swipe to see the stunning transformation from before to after. Let’s take a moment to honor and celebrate all our heroes this Memorial Day. 🦅✨

Graduation Gift for a Baseball Player

🎓 ‘I think I have too many shirts!’ said the customer. ‘You can never have too many!’ I replied, ‘Plus, there’s all that room on the back, too!’ 🤣 Excited to share this massive creation featuring 87 shirts — we got them all in! It measures 108 x 104 inches, and tips the scales at 10.9 lbs — weighted blanket territory! The back and border are all super soft minky. Congrats! A custom quilt tailored as a graduation gift for a talented baseball player. Celebrate big achievements with something just as grand! ⚾️🎉

Legal Clinic for Artists

🌟 Last chance to register for June’s Legal Clinic hosted by Alston & Bird! As an artist, securing your rights and managing legal concerns is crucial, and that’s where this amazing team comes in. They’ve been instrumental in helping Just TShirt Quilts navigate legal waters—from securing our trademark to providing top-notch legal advice. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for a 1-on-1 session with top-rated attorneys. Remember, it’s virtual and exclusive to Georgia residents. Secure your spot and safeguard your art! 🎨👨‍⚖️👩‍⚖️ #LegalHelpForArtists #TrademarkSuccess #GeorgiaArtists #ProtectYourArt #CreativeLegalAid

Swimmer quilt

Diving into memories with every stitch! 🌊💙 This special quilt, crafted for a TV industry pro’s champion swimmer daughter, weaves together a vibrant story of high school achievements. Featuring a collection of cherished T-shirts, each piece holds a tale of triumph and teamwork. Perfect for cozy moments after meets, it sports a soft pink backing—her favorite color! As her family has embraced swimming across generations, this quilt stands as a warm tribute to both her passion and their support. Thinking about preserving your own memories in such a unique way? Let’s chat! 🏊‍♀️🏆 #swim #swimming #aquatics #championstate #championship

Talking About Quilts

I recently accepted an invitation to talk about My Quilt Journey at Cherokee Rose Quilters in Douglasville. If was fun to talk about my passion. My talk lasted about an hour. I most enjoyed meeting everyone and answering questions ! Before I started talking there was a guild show and tell. Amazing quilts ! So much talent! That was a hard act to follow, but I managed! The group was very nice. Thanks for your hospitality.

I spoke about turning ordinary items in to something fabulous. The picture below shows some basketball jerseys that were incorporated in to a quilt for a young basketball player. Fabric selection, in this case the basketball fabric, helped to personalize the quilt and make it really special.

The dog collars were part of a memory quilt for a special puppy that passed. We incorporated as much as we could of the puppy’s everyday items: toys, blankies, stuffed animals, and the ribbon parts of the collars.

I welcome additional opportunities to share what I know and hone my speaking skills, If you have speaker needs in the area of custom quilts such as the joy of creating for others, the business side, and how to turn your hobby in to a business. I know a little bit about all of those and am more than happy to help!

If you’re thinking about going in to business, it means to take a risk, but don’t let go of your dream. If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count 😊!

Thanks also to https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=executive%20toastmasters for all of the support and Sarah and Ralf for help at the event.

Help Finishing your Quilt

Here’s Ava cuddling with her puppy. She knew the quilt was coming. Mom, Tina, had actually started it a long time ago, sewed all of the t-shirts together but needed help finishing it. She had hand sewn “old fashioned” hand ties over the quilt to hold the layers together. She was ok with us removing them in order to long arm quilt it. That’s because for long arm quilting the layers are loaded separately, one at a time on the long arm quilting machine. We added the all over simple quilting, meander, that she picked out and finished the edges with a separate binding in the same fabric that she used for the back.

In the end, Mom was glad it was done and daughter Ava “loves her quilt” – a graduation present.

You may have a similar need. There can often be more to finishing a t-shirt quilt than is anticipated at the outset. It seems simple enough. After all we all have tons of t-shirts, right! What could possibly go wrong?

Congratulations if you’ve tackled making your own t-shirt quilt and got this far or completed it. One of the most challenging parts to making your own t-shirt quilt even for a simple design like this is working with the actual t-shirts.

T-shirts are knits or often have a knit content. You may have some that are 100% polyester or some that are a blend of different fabrics. The challenge with knits is that as soon as you cut the shirt the edges curl. Now how do you sew shirt edges together that are curled. It’s not impossible; but, without interfacing, more time is needed to pin and straighten the edges all the way around the shirt before sewing and before long arm quilting.

What is interfacing? It’s a special fabric that is either sewn or ironed on to the t-shirt fabric to keep the edges nice and straight. We like t-shirts because they stretch and have some “give” with our activities. However, when you cut them to make something else out of them like a quilt, that stretch that we otherwise like can make you want to cuss!

If you’re making a t-shirt quilt, consider what’s important – spending the time to cut, pin and straighten each shirt before sewing them together or spending the time, plus the expense of interfacing to end up with a nice straight edge for sewing and no curls. Your choice. Like a lot of things in life, it can boil down to time or money! Tina’s quilt didn’t have interfacing, so we did the heavy lifting wrestling with the curls at quilting time.

One of the big advantages of interfacing is that the sewn edges end up nice and straight making for a nice appearance. The drawback is it adds expense to your quilt and more time to sew or iron it on to your t-shirts. There are several weights of interfacing from super light to heavy depending upon the end results that you’d like, light and supple or heavy. If you’re hot natured you may prefer a lighter quilt. If you’re cold natured you may want something heavier. Interfacing, batting, and fabrics choices all come together to make up the weight of a quilt.

Tina had excess fabric from her back, the 3rd layer, and planned to fold down the edges of it to make a “fold-over” binding. A fold over binding is thought to be faster. Not necessarily. If the middle layer, the batting has actually been included, the excess batting has to be trimmed off first. For best appearance, the back of the quilt is trimmed and straighted all the way around before being folded over to the front side to cover the raw edges. After being folded over it’s pinned all the way around through all layers so that it can be sewn. Then it’s sewn. Lots of technicalities to consider to completely finish your own quilt.

There is a lot of pride in finishing everything yourself if you have the time and talent. If you have both, it’s extremely rewarding to be able to say. I did it myself !

A separate finished binding is the professional way to finish a quilt. In this instance it did cost a little more, but we were able to lighten Tina’s load and finish her quilt, professionally, for her daughter’s graduation gift.

Tina was ok with me sharing her story. Otherwise, if you need help, we’re here for you.

No one has to know!

Green Bay Packers Quilted for the win!

This one’s not quilted. Yet. Can you tell?

Maybe you can’t. But the truth is that Green Bay fans you likely don’t really care. You just want Green Bay to win. Right?

 “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score? – Vince Lombardi

You look at this picture and notice the player. His uniform. His muscles. His movements. Locked in on his receiver, he’s getting ready to throw for a touchdown. Go team.

Random thoughts: is there really a player 00? I didn’t see on the roster. In this picture, it looks like 2 of the guys in the background are left handed.

Regardless, what’s important is that this is art that was professionally made. This art has been repurposed to be a part of a fabulous quilt and included for present and future generations to admire.

The moral of the story is that if you’re a sports fan you, too, probably have a lot of jerseys; a lot of t-shirts; a lot of fabric memorabilia that you’ve collected all over the years. This is something you can do and make something amazing to take to the games or gift as a present like this one.

We can help. With 77 years of quilting experience we know a little bit about creating quilts, and we want a touchdown every time.

Now back to the original question is it quilted?

Here, yes. It’s quilted. Quilting is the decorative stitching that goes through all layers of the quilt in the design of your choice, in the thread of your choice. Hearts here to show some Packer love.  

“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for the individual glory. They did it because they loved one another. – Vince Lombardi

The design is hearts, but it could also be footballs. The thread is silver, but it can be any color that you like. Quilting makes it a quilt.

 ” Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi

Come on and go with us. We’re going for the goal!