T shirt quilts
 

I have been asked to make a t shirt quilt which I no zippo about.
Any suggestions/tips would be appreciated. I was thinking of
using the E. Burns method. Thank you, Denise

I got a great book on how to do this. There are lots of posts on this topic which you can locate using search. I would either cut all one size or do all where the finished length/ width is a multiple of 3(when finished) such as 9.5x12.5 etc. cut the shirt apart very big, iron on a light stabilizer on the back and then cut to the useable size. Have fun. I have 3 that I have made and shirts cut to make 3 more. They also suggest a LAQ quilt it because of the material being difficult to work with on a domestic machine. I also found that buying a ruler that is the exact size to make the block. It makes "fussy cutting" them easier. A rotating mat makes it even easier although this is not be necessary.

use an iron on stabilezer on the back, quilt each block on your machine, and put them together with sashing. Instructions for putting the blocks together can be found under "quilt as you go" on many sites. I have made several, and this seems to be the easiest way.

I too use a stabilizer and adhere it before I square it up. I do use sashing as well. Have made many using this method without problems and have only quilted them on a long arm since we have one.

T-shirt quilts are so much fun to make! They are fast becoming my specialty. Just finished piecing my 3rd consignment quilt. Definitely use a sashing as it makes it more of a quilt than a craft project. I also like to use cornerstones to add another splash of color.

For my last quilt, I had gotten so many shirts with different size designs. The smallest was only 5" square, with the largest one being 15"X20". After measuring the optimum block size for each piece, I cut out graphing paper for each block and moved them around for best placement. It really turned out nice.

For the current one I just pieces, she wanted 20 shirts used and gave me several extras. I easily got 16 blocks cut at 12.5". LOVE the new 12.5" square ruler I had recently bought. Really makes it quick and easy to fussy cut those shirts. The rest of the shirts had designs that were wider than 12.5" and were only about 4" tall. I took 8 of these shirts and cut them all 6.5" tall and however long they needed to be. After piecing together the initial 16 blocks with all of the sashing, I added a strip of these extra long shirts to the top and bottom of the quilt. So far so good!

Make sure you cut the stabilizer big enough, or even better, apply the stabilizer, then cut to size. Ask me how I know :)

I have made several t-shirt quilts. it isn't difficult. the first thing to do is stabilize the t-shirt with lightweight fusible interfacing. Because sewing two t-shirt blocks together can result in a thick seam, I recommend using sashing between them to make sewing and quilting easier. Probably the hardest part is deciding on the layout, and that isn't really so hard. :)