The Christmas Challenge. A guest post by Kelley.

I am so excited to share this.  Kelley sent me this for show and tell but it was worth of a whole post as I wanted to include the whole story. This has everything I love... beautiful end results, inexpensive (or free) plus special and sentimental.

Also this has something else. Yes you can "get ahead" in another way... My Mum has done this... she has made ahead baby things for babies not born yet. I did this too. I started working on baby things years ago. I thought if I am not around the girls will have whole collections of things I made with love for their babies.

GRAMPS SHIRTS BABY BOY PROJECTS
I started saving my husband’s old, 100% cotton sport shirts.  Every four years or so, he decides to get rid of the old ones and buys new ones (at thrift store/op shop prices) when Dillard’s has a deep, deep clearance sale and we’re home on a US mainland visit.  I have never made a quilt before, but I imagined darling baby boy projects gleaned from Gramps’s shirts.  Of course, we have not a single human grandson (or granddaughter, for that matter) YET; only granddoggies.  But Annabel, life is short, and I decided that if something were to happen to me, my children will have something for their newborn sons that I made from their maternal grandfather’s shirts.

Since 2011 or 2012, I began saving the shirts and cut them into 5-inch squares.  This is very quickly accomplished with plaid fabric and a hem gauge.  I pressed the shirts and cut the squares on the ironing board.  The bin below is where they were reserved all these years.  Last year I cut the last shirts up, and squares gleaned from more than 30 different shirts eventually filled this bin!

MORE THAN 1,200 squares yielded:

ELEVEN (11) Gramps Shirts BABY BOY BIBS for each daughter (22 Bibs total); I used nanaCompany’s free bib PDF pattern and after I took these pictures below, I added snaps I purchased from SnapSource in Troy, Michigan, USA.

Each of our two married daughters will have a set of bibs like these (11 total).

Each bib required nine (9) 5-inch squares.  I backed the bibs with solid fabrics I had in my stash.  Typically it was a soft yellow, cream, beige or white-- whatever complemented the quilted bib front. 

Then, I made each daughter five (5) different Gramps Shirts Baby Boy burp cloths (below).  I backed all the burp cloths with a very nice, queen size, crisp, 100% cotton vintage white sheet I got at a thrift store for $2. (With the rest of the sheet I made large dish-drying towels and a bag to wash my lettuces in.)  Yield: 10 Gramps Shirts Baby Boy burp cloths (total).  Each of these required twelve (12) 5-inch squares, and for the burp cloths ONLY, I matched up all the points.  YIKES!  I’m so glad I didn’t do that on the bibs or the baby quilts (below).

The first things I made with the Gramps Shirt squares were these seven (7) Baby Boy quilt tops (below). Each quilt top required 10 rows x 10 squares = 100 squares, but since I didn’t match the points, some of the rows in the quilt actually had 12 squares, so about 110 quilt squares each (770 squares for 7 quilts).  Since I’d never quilted before, I also found a link to make a simple quilt frame that my husband made me for about $10.  Each daughter will have three quilts plus I have one leftover to gift.  I will use a low-loft quilt batting for these quilts, plus I will back them with a solid baby boy fabric like a soft blue or white.  I will also embroider on the quilts somewhere.

Before I constructed the quilt, I always took a photo of the design.  This was the first quilt top (below) that I did, so my design improved with each one thereafter.  I taught myself to mark my rows with labels, be “neater” with each one, and to cut the threads as I went.  Annabel, I taught myself and learned something new after sewing for nearly 50 years.  This is something my great-grandmother did with each and square inch of fabric scraps.  Nothing went to waste.  She likely made all of hers by hand, and because of the work of those hands, today I have a quilt that I treasure decades later that she made.  Our own children’s children will enjoy the fruit of my labors in years to come, too, and they’ll know the story behind all the quilt squares.  Though I constructed mine on a machine, I love how my baby boy quilts will have a vintage feel to them after I quilt them by hand.  They’re nothing special to the eyes of other beholders, but to my girls, they will adore them.

And would you believe I have many Gramps Shirts quilt squares leftover!  I have several vintage floral sheets I’ve collected from thrift stores, and I decided to make baby girl quilt tops, baby girl bibs and burp cloths with them!  These projects will not only put a huge dent in my stash (NEEDED!), they will turn into practical, useful necessities my girls’ daughters can use for generations to come.

*hugs*
Kelley~

This all is so lovely.  Plus it could be adapted to use up all kinds of other fabrics and prints that are special some way.  So many possibilities! Thank you so much Kelley.

I hope your week is going well!
Glenda is suffering blood cloths and having to rest while being treated. If you would pray for her this would be wonderful!  It is so hard when health issues are in our way.

For Valentines Day I made a big tray of Chocolate Brownies and tied it all up with a card!   
See you on Friday! xxx