T-shirt Quilt Problem
 

Hi! I've got a Tshirt quilt going and need some help. Not much quilting experience here! The variety of shirts that I'm working with caused me to decide to cut a bunch of different sizes instead of making them all 12x12 or 16x16. I want the finished quilt top to have a border in-between each tshirt-part that I cut. What's the best way to go about this? Would it work out right if I add a 2" border along the top and right side of each piece and them sew them all together? Also, what's the best type of material to use for the border? I'm ironing on the interfacing right now, so no rush on the answers as this is taking forever! Thanks.

I think you are right to add sashing in between the T shirts. Any good 100% cotton quilting fabric would work for the sashing, just pick a color or print that you think coordinates with the shirts. I would use just one fabric throughout since the shirts are probably different colors except you could use a second fabric if you wanted an outside border. Other threads on this board recommend not to try to quilt through the center or the lettering on the T shirts especially if they have that rubbery texture--just quilt around it. Good luck!

You might want to add a border to each tshirt square to bring them up to the same size, to make joining them easier.

Here is one that I did with different size shirts....you need to end up with an even number so...I would use graph paper and make a layout so You can figure what size fabric to add to each.

I did a couple a while back for my niece and nephew...all the logos were different sizes - and all the Tshirts were different colors. There was lots of "wasted" tshirt fabric, mostly from plain backs or around the bottom - so i backed that fabric with interfacing too and used it for the sashings (varying the colors) to make the blocks the sizes i wanted. It worked out great.

Just be very careful when fusing the interfacing. You can have a big mess on your hands of the iron get in contact with any of the paint on the front of the t-shirt. Realize that these quilts are very heavy when you get to the quilting process. You might want to see various layouts of photos that member have posted in previous post and see if you can find some inspirations. Just be sure to select the Advance search. I always find inspirations looking at what other quilter's have done.

I love the pic from Elaine and great tips from everyone! I think I'm going to try to build up each piece to a standard size with sashing like Krafty14 suggests. That's probably within my skill set. I would probably get lost in the graph paper for a couple of weeks!

Unfortunately, I already tossed the extra tshirt material. Thanks PenniF.