everytime I hear or see anything about a T-shirt quilt, I cringe. WHen we moved into our new house that my DH built us, I got rid of all my old t-shirts from my teenage years. I got tired of being a pack rat. My friend thought I'd lost my mind when I told her what I'd done.....I burned them, actually. I try not to be so hard on myself because they were in pretty bad shape. Prob. wouldn't 've made all that attractive of a quilt. I keep telling myself that. Most of them were Nirvana shirts from the early-mid 90's. SOme were white at one time. Some had plenty of holes.
I did the right thing, right?! THey were in poor shape. support me, here! :oops:

Sometimes you just have to let go. Otherwise, we would never have room for the cool new stuff. And I know how hard it is to realize that some stuff just outlives itself. So, yes, you did the right thing.

tHANK YOU! Deep down, I KNOW I really did do the right thing. It just hurts to see the pretty quilts made...and my shirts were so bad.

You have to put a fusible woven innerfacing on the back of the T-Shirts which adds time to the process, but you need to have plenty of iron cleaner on hand. No matter how careful you are some of that fusible ends up in the iron.

Couple of things... I ironed my seams open instead of to one side. T-Shirts are thicker than regular fabric and you have the added innerfacing.

Also I did no ironing on fronts of shirt. This would have melted some of the designs. BUT I didn't think about the fact that part of the design might get caught in the seam and so when I ironed them I got melted "stuff" on the iron a couple of times. No big deal, just had to stop and clean it off.

One thing I read and found to be true. Do not fret if you cut off part of the design. As long as you can see the majority of it, it really doesn't show up as missing. I did this on a few blocks where the design was sooo big and they are not noticable.

Also, the innerfacing will stretch one way, just as T-shirts stretch one way. You want to make sure that when you go to put the innerfacing on the shirts that the stretches go in different directions. So like if the T-shirts stretch from side to side, turn the inner facing so that it stretches top to bottom. This stabilizes the fabric.

Once you get going, it isn't difficult and I am already planning another one now that I done one.

Feel free to ask any questions along the way if you make one.

Barb C. in MS

I used this site to construct my first t-shirt quilt: http://www.goosetracks.com/T-ShirtQuiltInstructions.html

I sort of followed the instructions...I used 12 shirts but made my sashing wider and my border wider to balance the quilt and make it larger.

I backed mine with fleece so I would not have to deal with 3 laters. The friend I made it for loves it and won't let anyone else near it. She is now trying to bring me more t-shirts so I can make a second one if I don't happen to have a current project in the machine!! Such a true friend!!

:-) Paulette
Anchorage, AK

CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT COLOR THEAD TO USE ON A T-SHIRT QUILT. EVERY SHIRT IS A DIFFERENT COLOR. I AM USING A LONGARM.
I AM THINKING ABOUT USING INVISIBLE THREAD.

I used Invisible on the top and black on the bottom (the backing was black). The Invisible with the top is the best. Mine was quilted on a longarm machine with a large loose meandering stitch. Barb C

THANK YOU BARB C. I MAY GIVE YOUR SUGESTION A TRY.