Sewing T-Shirt Quilt Project
I love t-shirts. They are wearable momentos , silent announcements of your personality and a way to share what you love. They are also damn comfortable.
However, over the years I and my husband accumulated many shirts that for one reason or another, we didn’t want to wear anymore, but couldn’t bear to throw away. Add in t-shirts that my children outgrew, and you have quite a pile. So I’ve been meaning to make a t-shirt quilt for several years now.
T-shirt material is stretchy, thin, and tends to curl in on itself when cut into squares. The way to get around that is to use fusable stabilizer, which you can get in sheets or bolts at a sewing store.
Designing the Quilt
Apparently there are two schools of thought about t-shirt quilts. One group design blocks, attaching the neatly cut squares of precisely sized t-shirt cut-outs into larger blocks using other fabric, then strip the blocks together using a symmetrical design, sometimes with borders, dividers or symbolic motifs. These are actual quilters. Then there’s the “hey, I’ve got some t-shirts here, let’s sew them together into a big thing!” crowd. The problem with the latter (ok, ONE problem) is that it is hard to determine how big your quilt will end up, and whether it will be even on all sides. Do you just want to hang it up on the wall, or actually use it as a blanket? If it’s just a display and sewing’s not your thing, consider putting your shirts over thin cardboard squares, pinning them smooth, then connecting them together to cover your wall. If you’re determined to plow through to a finished, usable work of art, pick up a book on quilting so you can learn about batting, backing fabric, layout and fixing common problems. I’ve been cutting out squares and stabilizing them as I go along, and then I thought about design. Yeah. Wrong order. So I’m going with the “willy nilly” style, but probably putting in a border around the outside.
I’ll keep you updated with my progress. If a t-shirt quilt is too intimidating (or you only have a few shirts you want to use), check out this t-shirt scarf by Rachel Hobson on Make.
it will be epic