Hi Lisa.....I just finished a t/shirt quilt and I was having the same problem....trying to decide what to do about quilting over the shirts.....what I did was Sitich in the ditch around each shirt first and then when the whole quilt was done I did a swirly design thru the boarder and across some of the shirts that didnt have a lot of designs on them I will post a picture to show you what I mean......I used fleece on the back of the quilt I didnt use batting it was heavy enough......good luck Trish