When I saw that Challenge 5 of Project Quilting Season 15 was Wearables, I immediately thought of all the wonderful quilt apparel I saw at QuiltCon last month. There were jackets, coats, sweatshirts, and even shoes. I was extremely tempted to try affixing and stitching a quilt block to a plain grey sweatshirt, but I don’t have a quilt block made that I would like to use (but I have one in mind that would look great, the Double Woven Star Quilt Block by Joe, June, and Mae). I’m still getting caught up from my trip to Quilt Con, followed by a trip to see my niece in Michigan, so I needed to pick a quick project for this challenge.

I absolutely love visible mending but also couldn’t come up with something that I wanted to visibly mend. Then I thought about some plain light blue gloves that were still in my backpack from recent travels that could look quite cute with a few lines of sashiko stitches. I pulled out some pretty blue Perle floss and threaded a long sashiko needle. I thought I could mark lines on the knitted gloves with a Frixion pen, but my marking didn’t show up at all, so I decided to wing it and do three lines of organic stitching on each glove.

I had to go to Santa Fe for a medical appointment on Friday, and we drove down the day before since snow was forecasted (and living 6400′ in elevation in Northern New Mexico makes for dangerous morning driving when the roads are snowy or icy). So I worked on these gloves while in the hotel room Thursday night and took a quick pic Friday morning at Santa Fe  Quilting amongst the pretty blue batik fabrics. 

I’m still thinking of enhancing my plain grey sweatshirt with the Double Woven Star quilt block. I think it would be fun to wear next month when I go to the AQS Quilt Week in Paducah, Kentucky. That’s right! Since I retired in June and can do many of the things that were difficult to do while working full-time, I have booked several trips in 2024, including finally making it to Paducah. It’s a place I’ve wanted to go for a long time. Back in the 1990s, my mom, sister, and Aunt Lois went to this quilting mecca, and now I will be able to walk in their footsteps (maybe not literally, but who knows!?!)

 

For my future reference and also for anyone else interested, below are some links to two tutorials for attaching a quilt block to a sweatshirt, one is quilted and the other unquilted. The third link is to some beautiful wearable fashion by @florawestdesign on Instagram. I’m really tempted to make a Sawtooth Star with hand-quilting either in addition to the Double Woven Star Quilt Block or instead of it.

 

Quilt Block—Quilted

https://www.diaryofaquilter.com/using-quilt-blocks-for-wearable-fashion/

 

Quilt Block—Unquilted

https://www.southernsewingco.com/post/how-to-attach-a-quilt-block-to-a-sweatshirt

 

Flora West Design

https://www.instagram.com/p/CswxTPnSzIK/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==