Custom Car Quilt

Recently I had the opportunity to make a Custom Car Quilt for a man's 50th birthday ( welcome to the fun side of the hill, Jerry! ).  I must admit that I make more quilts for women than I do for men.  Not on purpose, it just works out that way!  This quilt was alot of fun to work on.

I got to use one of my favorite products to make this quilt.  I know I have talked about Printed Treasures before and I am sure you will hear about them from me again in the future.  Printed Treasures are paper-backed fabric sheets that you can print your photographs on using your own ink jet printer.  Let the sheets dry for a couple of minutes then carefully peel the paper off of the back.  .You can even wash your finished quilt and not loose your pictures.  It is easiest to take digital photos and print them from the computer right onto the Printed Treasures fabric sheet.  If you are using a printed photo you can scan the photo and then print it onto the fabric sheet.

Jerry is a "Car Guy" so his quilt has pictures of his cars and trucks on it.  You could make a quilt with pictures of your favorite things.

I began with 12 pictures provided by Jerry's wife.  The pictures were arranged in a 4x3 grid ( 4 rows with 3 pictures in each row ).  I used a white-on-white print to sew a 1 inch border around each photograph.  I think this made them look like snapshots in a photo album.

Next I used a blue mottled fabric to add 4 inch sashings.  The sashings for the top row had to be adjusted a bit to accommodate the two vertical pictures.  Of course, if all of your pictures are horizontal, this would not need to be done.  The body of the quilt was finished when the sashing was placed around the whole grid of pictures ( you may consider this to be the first border ).

Then several borders were added:  First, the white-on-white fabric was used to make a 2 inch border on all four sides.  Next a 4 inch border of the mottled blue and a 2 inch border of the white-on-white were added to the top and bottom only ( this added neccesary  length to the quilt ).  Additionally a 6 inch mottled blue border was added to all four sides of the quilt.  Finally, a 3 inch border of the white-on-white fabric was added to all four sides of the quilt to finish the quilt top.

The mottled blue fabric was used for the backing of this quilt as well as the binding.  The batting is a 6.6oz polyester which added the desired loft.  Meandering was chosen to quilt this quilt.  Meandering is a well liked style of quilting and allows the integrity of the pictures to remain intact because the quilter has control over the placement of the stitches.

I hope you will make a photo quilt of your own.  They are alot of fun and make a memory.  Experiment with your borders and your pictures.  The recipient ( even if you keep this quilt for yourself! ) will enjoy it for years to come.  Have some fun and if you can, please send me a picture of your quilt, I'd love to see it.

Happy Quilting,
Laurel