A wonderful new year is upon us!!

Happy 2011 everyone!! With the new year comes exciting things... I will be getting my BS in Allied Health Sciences with an emphasis in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, finally getting an apartment with my fiance, and getting married! That's right, we're engaged! We're planning a late August tiki-inspired wedding. Kris proposed with a gorgeous mystic topaz and diamond ring that he designed himself. I couldn't imagine a more perfect ring, or fiance.

 

 

I am sooo excited to start planning the wedding, and to finally see a time so soon that I will be able to start a life with my fiance in the same zip code!

But on to the true purpose of this post... I finished my very first quilt! A while back, Kris had given me over 50 t-shirts that he adored, but no longer wore for a variety of reasons. I divided them into music/concert t-shirts and movie/random fun t-shirts. I came out with 35 of the movie/randoms, so I decided they would make a nice t-shirt quilt. I cut them into 12" squares, 7 down and 5 across, interfaced them, sewed them together, added a 3" border, and brought it to a local woman's house get quilted together. The fee was reasonable and she had it done in just a few days. She gave me some good tips and tricks and was encouraging, which was helpful as a first-timer. I went with a warm and natural cotton batting and black cotton sheeting for the backing. Kris gets super toasty and didn't want something overly warm, so I thought these would be good choices for his quilt. I machine stitched the binding to the front and whip-stitched it in the back. It was time-consuming, but enjoyable.

 

 

and here's Kris all snoodled up in his new Christmas quilt :)

I would definitely do another one of these in the future, maybe for myself :)

Does anyone had any ideas on fun projects that I can do with concert t-shirts that will display the front and back? I still have a bunch of Kris's shirts that I would like to do something nice with for him rather than have them sit on a shelf in the closet.

Before I bid you adieu, I want to show off the AWESOME tiki plates my lovely, talented fiance painted for me as an anniversary gift:

He also got me this super sweet calendar that will keep me busy sewing, all year long!