Wednesday 6 February 2013

Make your own Sheldon!

Hi all! I've had a lot of questions about how I made my Sheldon Cooper quilt so I wanted to share my process. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, but it worked for me (I have noted where I would make changes to my process).

First, I made the pattern using the above photo and myphotostitch.com. This is a cross stitch pattern maker but it works pretty well for a quilt pattern as well. You will have to play with the settings a little bit to get the image you want. Once I had my pattern, I purchased my Kona colors that roughly match the suggested thread colors.

Here are my squares all cut up. In the end, I had about 7500 1.5x1.5" squares.
So then, I basically followed Sew Mama Sew's instructions for how to "quick-piece tiny squares" Here's the link to that. My photo above will show you how I did it differently - I drew the grid directly on the interfacing which came in 8.5x11 sheets. Next time, I would definitely buy a pre-gridded interfacing that came in metres as this became quite expensive. This is supposed to be wash-away interfacing but I haven't tested that theory yet. After you go through all of those steps outlined by SMS, you will end up with something like this:

And then, once quilted and bound should turn into something like this:

You can then show off your handiwork to anyone who cares to listen. Honestly, the quilting was the worst part of this and I felt like I had to fight with it the whole time. I think partly this is due to the fact that this was the largest quilt I tried to finish on my modest little machine but also I think the interfacing I chose was to blame. It was much stiffer than expected but hopefully it will be a lot better once it's washed once or twice. I started cutting pieces for this quilt in July and finished the whole thing in January. That's a long time! I've learned a lot though and I'm sure the next one will be much faster - especially now that I have my Go! Baby cutter!

I'd love to see what you decide to make with this mini-tute. Please pass along a pic! And if anyone knows someone at CBS, I think this would look really good on TV!

19 comments:

  1. I'm making a pixelquilt

    https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6RCTUmtiPsXmow59ORKGF9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

    I'm using Quilter Grid 820 and Quilters grid 821. The difference between the two is 820 has lines horizontally and vertically, and 821 has them diagonally. Since are preprinted with one inch squares, and I'm also using 1.5 inch squares. I need to redraw the lines.

    Also for cutting the squares, I use one of these.

    http://www.amazon.com/June-Tailor-Shape-Cut-Ruler/dp/B000YZ7SJM/ref=sr_1_2?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1360158225&sr=1-2&keywords=shape+cut+pro

    fold the fabric in half twice, so it fits under the shape cutter. Cut one direction, pick up the cutter, rotate it 90 degrees and cut the other direction. It let me cut about 200 squares in about 5 minutes with very little waste.

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  2. Totally awesome quilt!! Also really nice of you to share how you made it too. Maybe you should start a flickr group of these ;-))

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  3. Thank you for sharing! Your Sheldon makes me so happy!

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  4. A TV character? (I had to Google him.)Wow. Amazing amount of work!

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  5. WOW! I had to pin this so my daughter could see.

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  6. this is absolutely amazing! i admire the effort - come on, when I think about the number of these tiny squares, it makes me shiver ;)

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  7. omg this is amazing! you should show it to the produceds of Big Bang!!!!!

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  8. Your quilt is amazing and 7500 pieces. I have often thought to do a quilt based on one of Sheldon's t-shirts but haven't gotten to that yet. I hope someone from CBC sees it.....

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  9. I happened to stumble onto your quilt while messing around on Flickr. I absolutely LOVE it. BAZINGA (couldn't resist)!!!! That show is a staple in our house. The ideas are flying around in my head now.

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  10. I adore Sheldon and love your quilt!! Amazing amount of work. Pixel quilts are great, but you sure do have to make a lot of little pieces to make it work. I play around with the same idea, but with hexies ;)

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  11. Have you seen this on-line tool for making pixel quilts? It totally made me think of your Sheldon quilt - http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/quilts/patchwork

    I pop over to your blog from time to time to see what a sister Dartmouth quilter is up to. Perhaps you'd visit my blog?
    http://quarterinchfromtheedge.blogspot.ca/

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  12. I think you did an awesome job with this quilt. I have all kinds of ideas swimming in my head for subject matter.

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  13. I think your quilt is amazing did you see then#10 Dr. Who quilt at St. Louis Folk Victorian. You quilters, who can pull off these pixel quilts are so absolutely talented to the enth degree. Thanks for sharing. Deb

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  14. Your quilt looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing how you made it! :)

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  15. absolutely amazing.. thank you for sharing.. i have always wanted to make one of these.. now i know how!!!

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  16. BAZINGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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