DH's T-Shirt Quilt

[Evie]

Thank you for the compliments!

If you prepare the t-shirt blocks, then they are easy to work with.

Wash them first with no softner and no dryer sheets! If you do, the fusible won't stick to the t-shirt material. I had to learn the hard way!

You cut the blocks larger than what you want. Iron on the fusible interfacing (I used Pellam, sp?). Then trim the block down to what you want it to be. In my case, I trimmed down to 15 1/2" blocks. One t-shirt (The Computer Bum) was small, so I went into the sleeve area of the shirt in order to get a big enough square. The fusible kept it all flat and smooth so I had no trouble piecing it or quilting it. Except that my invisible thread kept breaking when I was trying to quilt. I came on here to this forum and asked for help. And got it. I was using nylon thread and someone suggested that I switch to Sulky Polyester thread and that solved the problem. It's more expensive, but worked like a charm! I tried to center as much as possible on the Computer Bum shirt. If you look closely, you might be able to see the curved seam lines in the top corners.

ScrapQuilter, I love your son's quilt! How did you position everything? Did you just appliqué blocks onto the background, or did you follow a routine to get them all on?

[lhostelley]

Evie & ScrapQuilter, Your quilts are great!!!! My son wants one made from all of his old baseball shirts. I keep saying I will but then another quilt gets started. I plan to make 2 memory quilts for Jeremys parents now. I hope that they will help fill the void in their lives. I wanted to make them out of the t-shirts that he had but the parents took all of his cloths with them. So my next project has again been changed.

[ScrapQuilter]

Evie

Since I had so many t-shirts, this quilt just kept getting bigger and bigger. I used parts of 90 t-shirts and there were leftovers. T-shirt knit isn’t hard to work with once it is backed with interfacing. Remembering not to iron on the front of a t-shirt without using a press cloth is the hardest part. Some t-shirts retain color that smears when a hot iron hits it.

I washed all the t-shirts and cut pieces from the back, front or sleeves. I used Stacy Shape-flex for backing and found it easier to use than the interfacing from Joann’s. Each t-shirt has a sashing that finished at 1 inch. After the sashing went on, the t-shirts were arranged and rearranged til I was happy with the layout. Then I started with the lattice—the footprint beige fabric (kind of hard to see the footprints in the pictures). The largest t-shirts went around the perimeter. I worked in 5 columns, with each column being the width of the widest t-shirt in that column. The length was determined by the longest of the 5 rows. No Applique. When a row came up short, I added some more lattice or a part of a leftover shirt.

For a first t-shirt quilt, it is far easier to have all the t-shirts cut to a common size.

[Tiggersmom]

These are all wonderful!!!!
Thank you for sharing!

[calicopuzzle]

These are some of the NICEST t-shirt quilts I have ever seen. You did great on the quilting and the placement. How very special they must be to the owners!!!

[quiltwithmom]

OH MY! I just came across this thread. These are great!
I have T-Shirts in a tote bin just waiting for me to do this. I've never seen one finished. I just had heard about them and thought it would be fun to do.
Thanks for sharing pictures and where to go for directions.

Kathy

[grammy65]

These quilts are great. OK...now I have another project on my list. I have one T-shirt that I keep wearing and telling myself to stop so I can save it for a T-shirt quilt. You guys did a wonderful job on those.

[ollie1shoe]

scrap quilter really like the t shirt quilt do you just attach them to a back ground fabric and use a zig zag stitch are do you do it another way i noticed they are different sizes which i like ollie1shoe

[ollie1shoe]

evie i like your quilt very much also after looking at both of these it gives e some ideas ollie1shoe

[Evie]

Bumping to the top for justdawne.