I have to make a pillow from a T shirt. What kind of iron on stabilizer should I use? What do you recommend and can you offer any other advise?

The pillow will be a ring pillow for a wedding and the T has the name of the grooms college on it.

Thanks!

Not to sure about that but your idea is great. Have'nt worked with any T-shirts.

Pretty much any of the iron on stabilizers that your local store sells should work. Just be sure to get something that you can sew through...not too much sticky or too thick. I've never really worked much with T-shirt material, but I use stablilizer for machine embroidery. I generally use the tear away, not iron on, but I have used it. I think I would go with something with a good thickness to it because T-shirt fab can be hard to work with. That's just my opionion. GOod luck!

I'd really be interested to hear more feedback about this too. I bought some inexpensive t-shirts one time, I should say, cheap, was being nice. They started coming apart at the seams, anyway, the design on them is so cute, would make great pillows for grands to use when here, for moving watching etc.

What if you used Lite Heat N Bond and put a backing onto the shirt (tshirt-heatnbond-fabric). Then it would make it a bit more stable to sew. Maybe??
You could try it out on an old tshirt to see if it works.

Thanks everyone.

Do you think fusible fleece will work? I'm going to play with an old T and see if it works.

I've never done this before and I know T's are a bear to sew because of the stretch.

I had to fuse mine to fabric so it was more stable. It was my second quilt and I used too heavy of heat and bond and it was soooo hard to quilt. Learned to use light stuff.

A gal at work just finished a t-shirt quilt. 'll ask her. She has used steam-a-seam before. I think a lot depends on how stiff (or not) you want the feel. Good idea to test on a sample piece.

There is a woven fusible interfacing that you can buy at Joanns. That is what I use for t-shirt quilts. Not sure about the fusible fleece but testing it on another shirt is a good idea.

I tried the fleece, too stiff, so I tried some french fuse I got from Hancock awhile back and that was much better.

I haven't made it yet, still testing, but I'll post it when done.

I had good luck with a lightweight, iron on, stablizer. It might have been Heat N Bond, like Terri said. You iron it on a larger section than you plan on using and then cut it to size. Good luck.

hi, I just purchased a magazine with instructions for a T-shirt quilt - I also wish to try my hand at one. Their instructions:
"look for interfacing brand names such as So Sheer or Fusi-Knit. The greatest stretch of most T-shirts goes around the body (crosswise). To stabilize the knit fabric, place the interfacing so its stretch goes the opposite the T-shirt's stretchiest direction (usually this means putting the interfacing's greatest stretch running lengthwise), then fuse in place.

I hope this helps a little. :)

Thanks :D

I do a LOT of applique and what I use is Wonder Under. It is a little lighter than heat n bond and won't gum up the needle as much. Maybe you could just fuse it to bleached muslin to give it stability and then go from there.
Good luck!

As promised, I asked the gal at work today and she used "100% cotton fusible."

Ok, thanks MadQuilter.

I use the lightest pellon. First I quickly fuse it on, then cut out approximately what I need, then refuse it, being careful not to stretch the tshirt fabric. Hope this helps.

3 years ago my DIL gave me some tee shirts and asked me to make a quilt for our oldest grandson who was graduating from High School. I learned alot in making that.

First of all, to give the most stability, use a non woven, iron on stabilizer. The other thing I learned is quilting is almost impossible. Almost every thing I read was to tie it not to quilt it.

The best part was when he opened it. "So that is where my tee shirts are!"

This year no. 2 is graduating and I am waiting for the shirts. Good luck on your project.

Mary