Houston Quilt Market 2015 - Last Day

It's our last day of Quilt Market, and we struggled to squeeze in some last sights before heading out.  We would have stayed until Monday, but we have  to take a day or so to catch up and get ready for Quilt Festival!   We walked the whole show On Saturday, and had to come back this morning  to make sure we didn't miss anything and tried to visit all of our quilty friends.  Thank you for another amazing Quilt Market, Houston!

We checked several of the fabric vendors and have several new fabrics ordered for the new year, as well as re-stocking many of our old favorites. I think you will find that T-Shirt Quilts of Texas has the largest variety of fabrics to choose from, than any other professional  T-Shirt Quilt company in the country.

Paula Barnes, Betty and Mary Ellen

The first stop we made was at Red Crinoline Quilts, with our good friends from Houston Paula Barnes and Mary Ellen Robinson.  they have a new book just being released.

Overview of Market floor

We walked, shopped and checked out all the new fabrics.  Placed orders with several of the fabric vendors like Quilting Treasures, Moda, P&B Fabrics, Troy Fabrics, We walked, shopped and checked out all the new fabrics.  Placed orders with several of the fabric vendors like Quilting Treasures, Moda, P&B Fabrics, Troy Fabrics,customers.

Selecting fabrics with fabric vendor.

Oh, did I mention that there was a little bit of 'weather'?  Part of hurricane Patricia was blowing through.  Totally missed the storm, as we were shopping  at the GRB (George Brown Convention center) and hanging out at the Hilton.

PS- we have a Janome 350E embroidery machine for sale. One year old. Prefer that someone pick it up rather than shipping it.

Photos on Your T-Shirt Quilt

At T-Shirt Quilts of Texas, we have printed photos on fabric for over ten years.  Nothing new about that.  However, we have found that while we can print high resolution quality photos on fabric and set the ink per product instruction, we find that the resulting product quality is not to our satisfaction over a period of time.  We are creating quilts to last a lifetime, and find that the images on fabric 'might not' last as long.  Not good.

National Honor Society Logo 

While we would follow the manufacturer instructions for setting the ink, there were potential problems that we  could not control.  According to the instructions,  you 'should' be able to include the photo in your quilt and launder it with same results as a traditionally pieced quilt.  We had one gal that repeatedly printed the color pictures on her fancy laser printer at work.  Problem was that it HAS to be an inkjet printer and not a laser printer.  We couldn't convince her of that.   The photos she printed and sent in literally faded from the squares about two weeks after the quilt was quilted and completed.  Again, not good.

What we have found, is that most t-shirt quilt owners throw their quilt into the laundry using harsh soaps.  Not surprisingly, that even though we followed the manufacturer instructions, we found that the images are fading much faster than expected.  So, we changed how we do things.  We no longer print the photos on fabric, and have decided to let the experts take care of this aspect of the process.

T-Shirt Quilts of Texas Logo

What did we do?  We have partnered with VistaPrint to print high quality images directly on t-shirts. While Vista-Print only offers shirts in white, gray and black, you can be assured that the resulting product will hold up like the rest of the t-shirts in your quilt.   Of course, you can use any of the many online outlets that let you use your image to print on a t-shirt.  Different companies will offer different color t-shirts if that is what you would like. See the header on our homepage.  It was created at CustomInk so that we could get the orange t-shirt to match our logo.

Customer Image added to T-Shirt

Note-  If you have more than one image to print, just print it on the backside of the same shirt for a discounted rate. 

We are happy to provide this service for you.   We do have to charge for this service due to the time involved.. But, if you are feeling courageous, just click the VistaPrint link. You 'should' get a ten dollar credit towards your purchase.  If you are already a VistaPrint  customer, then go ahead and design your t-shirt online and have it shipped directly to us.  Or, order it ahead of time and include it with your shirts that you send to us.

Choosing Backing Fabric for a T-Shirt Quilt

The term tone on tone refers to a printed fabric that is made by combining different shades and tones of the same color.
Tone on tone fabrics often appear to be solid when viewed from a distance, but their printed motifs become recognizable on closer inspection.  Tone on tone fabrics  add subtle, visual texture to a quilt without the busyness of a multi-color print.
Personally, I rarely use a solid color fabric, because tone on tones serve the same purpose and do not appear as 'flat' as solids. Black is the exception, we do use a deep, dark saturated black as an accent border.

6 Tips For Selecting A T-Shirt Quilt Maker.

You do a search on Google to find someone to make a t-shirt quilt.  My goodness, there are so many websites, so many styles, so many prices.  How do you know who to select?  What questions should you ask?  How do you select a company to make YOUR custom t-shirt quilt from YOUR treasured t-shirts?

T-Shirt Quilt Style - Order or Chaos?

There are two major styles of T-Shirt quilts.   What I refer to as  'Order' and 'Chaos'.  OK, that seems like an extreme comparison, but let's look at the difference between order and chaos as pertains to t-shirt quilts.

First of all, I grew up looking at quilts that two of my great-grandmothers and my grandmother made or were working on.  In high school, my favorite classes were  geometry, accounting, physics and silver-smithing   (I went to a great high-school- we also had  archery and canoeing as phys-ed options).   I was a computer programmer in the corporate world.   I like lists. I like to read Science Fiction.  OK, yeah, I am a geek. But, all of these studies involve science and ORDER.

How does that pertain to quilts you ask??

Traditional Style Quilt

T-Shirt quilts fall into these same categories.  A traditional quilt is generally created using uniform sized blocks that are laid out in columns and rows.  Traditional  t-shirt quilts will appeal to most people because their sub-conscious wants this order and the 'eye' wants to see things in an ordered way.

Random or Chaos Style Quilt

A random quilt can be done in many ways.  If you have ever looked at the random styled t-shirt quilts, you will either love 'em or hate 'em.  Couple of reasons for this.    It takes a lot of skill and creativity to lay out a random style t-shirt quilt in a pleasing manner.  Most people don't have that skill. There are a few t-shirt quilt providers out there that have formulas for creating these quilts, but, the problem is that the color  and value of the t-shirts is not taken into account.  Sometimes, the formula works, but more often than not, the resulting quilt just looks like chaos.

At T-Shirt Quilts of Texas we are known for our high quality 'TRADITIONAL" quilts and proud of it!  We have years and years experience looking at the shirts that you provide, and coming up with a pleasing and satisfying layout of the shirts.