T-Shirt Quilt Hints and Tips

The extent of my creativity right now runs to t-shirt quilts - there's another on the way! This time, it's a small one to hang on the wall. 

That's the initial layout, using approximately 21 shirts, including some of the backs. Notice there's no space created for sashing, no additional fabric anywhere. I'm keeping all the cuts tight to the logos for this one. And I like it, especially that stack of three in the lower right.

Here's another in-progress photo, which looks pretty much the same except the shirts along the bottom and left side have a sheerweight fusible on the back, are trimmed to size, and some even sewn together.

I will admit to a slight cutting goof. This little guy was supposed to go all the way to the right edge.

But I measured incorrectly and cut him too narrow. Thankfully, I still had an unused narrow LinkedIn piece to fill in the space.

That's the only spot where LinkedIn appears vertically, and you probably wouldn't have noticed had I not told you!

So, now that I've had plenty of practice making t-shirt quilts, here's a few hints to pass along:

• start by cutting out all the logos as large as possible, so there's plenty to play with for adjusting the size

• never, ever iron on the front of the t-shirt, or there will be a mess of logo paint on the iron, and on the shirt

• fuse a large piece of sheer weight fusible to the back and avoid butting two pieces together - the joint will show on the front

• when shopping for a fusible, choose one that is light weight and has ample sized glue dots on the back - this should stick without adding a ton of weight to the shirt

• set up measuring tapes on the floor of the final size of the quilt and work within those parameters

• layout the untrimmed shirts within the measuring tape quilt size, refining the design with logo size and sashing

• an easy way to design is by rows, or block units - whichever way makes sewing construction the easiest

• once the plan is determined, proceed with trimming the shirts to size

• remember to add a 1/2" for seam allowances!

Sounds easy enough, right? I won't deny that t-shirt quilts take quite a bit of time and creativity, but if you're willing to cut and fuse the shirts, and play with designing, they can be quite fun to create. I hope you take the plunge!

Happy Quilting!