I get asked to make t shirt quilts pretty often. Every one has an abundance of t shirts and admittedly these quilts are heavy and lovely to cuddle underneath. They also have tons of special memories. Well a lot of time I redirect people to very wonderful services like project repat. These services really are very economical and the cheapest way to get a t shirt made!
Well this particular friend, was willing to pay a fair wage because she was nervous about sending her precious shirts off somewhere unknown. So she gave me 10 years worth of mommy and me dance shirts from her daughter’s dance troop.
Now I couldn’t have done this project without my lovely quilting friend Cathy! She lent me these awesome templates, that I seriously fell in love with! Essentially these templates take all of the math out of the equation, they all fit together in one way or another. They are called Too Cool Style Tshirt Quilts.
These templates definitely give you enough options for full shirt of different sizes, pocket logos, and even a long skinny size for designs on the arms.
So Nancy gave me a bag of t shirts and I went to work! I do work full-time so she asked me almost 8 months in advance of her daughters 10th recital. She wanted this to be her gift to celebrate that monumental feat, 10 years!
I first give the shirts a rough cut, then added a stabilizer. I used a Pellon P44F. This is a very lightweight fusible stabilizer which is what I wanted. We live in Texas and I didn’t want to add too much weight to the already heavy pile of shirts. Finally I cut them to the final size using the templates. As you can see above, it took a little work to get them into a layout I liked. I created this batting “design wall” in my sewing room to help with projects just like this! I did use scraps from the shirts to fill in gaps of the original design (not pictured but you’ll see below).
*Tip*- Sometimes fusible interfacing likes to come off if you haven’t adhered it evenly or if it’s older from your stash, take the extra time after piecing the quilt to do a basting stitch around the entire raw edge of the quilt before you baste it! It will save you a lot of trouble!
I do always label my quilts, because this one was a commission piece I let the customer choose what to put on the label. I love how it turned out. Her quote is lovely and although the last 6 months of dance and her 10th recital has been canceled I’m glad I could help to mark the occassion with this quilt!
Quick note about the back of the quilt, I couldn’t decide on what to put on the back. My lovely friend Jennifer who owns Threaded Lines quilt shop in Magnolia Texas helped me out BIG! I sent her a picture of the quilt and asked her for help. She sent me 3 or 4 options and this was one. Honestly I love the quilt backing just as much as the front!
You can get some here! It’s called Grid- Vitrine Gems by Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery Fabrics. It’s great for the backing and it hides the seam, and any other flaws you might have….
What do you think? I love how the colors and dancers all go together. And as many people have said, quilting it was a breeze it behaved very similarly to quilting cotton once the stabilizer was applied. Have you ever made a t shirt quilt? If you don’t sew do you own a t shirt quilt?
Thanks for following along 🙂
-Tina
I can’t wait to see what you do with mine 🙂