T-Shirt Quilts

[Eileen K.]

Another site you can go to for pictures of t-shirt quilts and, any other type, is webshots. Type in the quilt you're looking for and voila!

[Lilo B.]

Eileen you weren't kidding about webshots! My husband wants a t-shirt quilt (and I want to get rid of the thousands of shirts). I went to the website and was amazed that they have over 2000 t-shirt quilts to view :shock: . Thanks for the tip. Lots of ideas.

Lilo

[Lilo B.]

I am making a t-shirt quilt for my husband and I wanted to use his basketball jersey but it is very different than the t-shirts (what with the holes!) I am not sure if I could use it or not. What do you think? :shock:

[Lilo B.]

I have made 4 t-shirt quilts and always machine quilted them myself. I usually stitch in the ditch along the sashing and sometimes outline the designs on the t-shirt blocks themselves. The one thing I didn't do is stitch through any of that real stiff rubbery printing like on the numbers on the backs of sports team shirts. Just go around those. I always use batting and flannel for the back. They turn out to be the best stadium blankets ever!

Nancy in sunny and finally warm western NY

[Frances L.]

I have several bags of t-shirts to make quilts out of for my 3 kids. When we traveled, we bought them t-shirts as souviners. Now that they are in their 20's it's time to make quilts out of them. I took a class years ago, and we just cut around the design part of the t-shirt and filled in with blocks around it. I like the sashing part better.
Frances in warm Austin.

[Frances L.]

I am making a t-shirt quilt for my husband and I wanted to use his basketball jersey but it is very different than the t-shirts (what with the holes!) I am not sure if I could use it or not. What do you think? :shock:

You might have to line the blocks with the jersey's, then quilt by either stitch-in-the-ditch or tying it.

DH just went through his t-shirts and hinted he wanted me to make them into a quilt for him :lol:

[Frances L.]

I am making a t shirt quilt for my husband as well, and have run into a somewhat similar problem - not the webbed jersy but shirts he wore so much they look like swiss cheese (this quilt is my defense as he will not let me toss out this shirts :lol: ) Anyway I am lining the holey shirts using matching colors of cotton and fusible web. Now the web might not be a good idea with the web jersy, but maybe you could try a temporary addhesive of some kind and then anchor the jersy down with some top stitching.

[Eileen K.]

When I do a t-shirt quilt for a client, I use the fusible tricot. It's very lightweight but stabilizes wonderfully. I use the logo on the shirt with about an inch margin around it. Depending on the size, it will either become a block itself or I'll piece a couple together to get them up to size.
I quilt them with an all-over pattern, right through everything. If you don't do some quilting within the block, after a while the shirts will begin to sag. Don't forget-they're heavier than regular blocks because they're already 2 layers.
I use regular batting and backing, and I coordinate the colors of the sashing and backing-the client chooses the colors.
Hope this helps,
eileenkny 8)

[Eileen K.]

*
FONS AND PORTER shows how to make T SHIRT quilts in their current series 1100. They had some good ideas ..... especially the importance of stablizing the fabric. They suggested using a knit stablizer as they felt it wore better when the quilt was in use and did not bubble as much.


IF you get the chance look at the DVD / show segment before diving in.

[Eileen K.]

The first quilts I made were t-shirt quilts for my twins. Luckily someone at the fabric store told me about the interfacing I didn't use batting, but used polar fleece for the back, and just turned them envelope-style and tied them. After 7+ years of hard use, they need some fixing, and I might consider disassembling and remaking, or just doing some machine quilting for support.

I confess the downside of actually using a t-shirt quilt on the bed is that when the bed is unmade (most of the time :roll: ) it not only looks like a messy bed, but looks like it's covered with laundry!! :lol:
Florence