Longarming a T-shirt quilt
 

Do any of you longarmers do t-shirt quilts? Please tell me about it.

I have done one - only because my friend had made a top and wanted to quilt it on her domestic sewing machine but couldn't get it to go well. So I did it for her as a favour. Her top was very well stabilized, made entirely of t shirt material and a treat to quilt. She had spray basted it together but I had to pull it apart somewhat to put it on the longarm. We were both pleased with it. I did do a fairly widely spaced pantograph on it.

I've made a few memory quilts with t-shirt fabric. I did fuse Pelon Shape-Flex on the back of the t-shirts. They quilted up beautifully.

I have done 20+ t-shirt quilts. I have only done one with an all over stipple. I normally quilt around the designs on the T-shirts and then do something in the banners. I normally piece them as well so I have them backed with light weight fusible interfacing to reduce stretching.

I've done one large T-shirt quilt from start to finish at someone else's request. For me, there was this awful moment when I was deconstructing the T-shirt and cutting the logos: I felt like I was cutting someone else's memories apart! I backed the shirt logos with fusible interfacing, pieced and finally loaded on the longarm with 108" backing, the lightest batting I could find, and meandered allover around the logos. I didn't want the backing to stretch like it sometimes does when quilting a pieced backing, the Hobbs polyester that's used for clothing is thin but strong. and meandering worked to hold it all together nicely. It was still heavy but the recipient loved it so I'm counting it a success. Have fun!

I have done several. just a few considerations - I may have to raise my foot a bit because the seams can be thicker. There was one that I needed that bowl/scoop foot to help glide over the thick seams. The only other thing I consider is if the shirts have that vinyl type of lettering or logo, I do not stitch through that, it leaves very obvious holes that are not attractive

otherwise, go have fun!

Don't know if this is how you do this, but thank you longarmers for your helpful answers. Much appreciated.