I have done tee shirts both ways. The ones that I did without stabilizer were difficult to machine quilt. So I did machine stitching around the sashings and the either tied or hand quilted within the tee shirt design. One of my unstablilized tee shirt quilts was completely tied. It is the most comfortable quilts of all. (I use it daily!) The stabilized quilt was quilted by a LAer and came out beautifully. It was actually too large for me to handle on my DSM. I have purchased a teflon presser foot to try with the next tee shirt quilt. I have read that this foot helps with sewing over the logos of the shirts.