T-shirt quilt help please!
 

I am making a t-shirt quilt for a friend and wonder if everyone out there uses a stabilizer? I have a friend who has made several, and I have made one...all without stabilizer, and all have worked out well. These t-shirts have been washed many times, so are not stretchy. Just curious because all I see is posts where stabilizer is used. Thanks!

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.

I use a light weight stabilizer and quilt on my long arm, and have no problems. This is what works for me.

I would use a stabilizer in each tee shirt. The fabric "runs" away when long arm quiting it and it is very hard to get it to lay flat and look nice when quilted.

Thanks so much for your input. It didn't occur to me to wonder how it would be for the quilter...was mainly thinking about me putting it together with the least trouble! I will definitely go with the stabilizer. The Teflon foot is a good tip for when I get brave enough to try quilting one! Happy quilting!

I only use stabilizer on any that I make, just seems safer that way.. have not had any compliants

I've made several t-shirt quilts and have used "french fuse tricot" to stabilize. It's lightweight and doesn't cause problems with the quilting. If you can find the 60" width it makes it a lot more economical. A couple things; it has two directions, one that stretches and one that does not, so you need to make sure the "stretchiest" part of the t-shirt doesn't have the stretchy part of the fusible; also you need to use some kind of pressing cloth when ironing it on.

On my bucket list!

I've made several, and always use Pellon 906F fusible interfacing. It's not stretchy, doesn't add weight, and I quilts up beautifully. I personally never stitch through the logos, if possible. I like for them to "pop" when you look at it, and stitching around the logos makes them the center of attention.

I have never liked sewing knits and couldn't imagine trying to sew t-shirts without using a lightweight fusible interfacing on the back.