Tee-Shirt Quilt

I live in tee-shirts almost everyday. Most of them hold memories of places I went or events I attended. What to do with them when they are no longer wearable....sew with them!!!

Over the past 2 weeks I've used some of my time to make a tee-shirt quilt out of a bunch of my old Camp tee-shirt!

This was my first attempt at such a project and I made a few discoveries of what I will NOT do again and what I would do again!

I will not share a detailed tutorial with you since many of those can be found online written by much more experienced quilters.

But I hope I can inspire you to make one yourself and maybe you can get a couple ideas from me!

Without mentioning how many times I pricked my fingers...I had SO much fun with this project!

J encouraged me to make this quilt with random size blocks. As you can see no long horizontal or vertical lines catch the eye.  

Just a hint - this makes for some awkward seems. If you want a more straightforward tee-shirt quilt HERE are some great instructions. 

What you need: 

- Tee-shirt (the more the better)

- Quilt Batting or old blanket 

- Fabric of your choice for backing and binding (I just used inexpensive cotton).

- Mediam Weight Interfacing 

- Rotary Board, Ruler, and Cutter

- Scissors

- Tape measure 

- Calculator  

- Note pad

Even with the aid of my calculator I had a brain workout laying out this quilt! I'd not done that much math since grade school. 

1. Lay out your tee-shirts on your floor before cutting them. Checking to see where you will want colors and designs. 

2. Use your tape measure to make sure your tee-shirts will be wide/long enough for the size quilt you want (60x80 is what I did). 

REMEMBER TO FIGURE IN SEEMS!! I did half inch seems - that meant my blocks would be cut 1 inch wider and longer than I wanted them to end up. 

Do your math, double check, triple check before you cut!! 

I used a note book to draw out a diagram of the quilt as I went along. This helped me  keep track of all the numbers.

3. Cut your shirts 

4. Iron on your interfacing to each block

HINT: make sure your interfacing is not smaller than your block. If it is, your tee-shirts will stretch as you sew them together. 

5. Sew your blocks together 

If you look at my quilt above, you will see that there are 3 patches that are off set. What I did for these was to put 2 pieces of iron on interfacing together back to back (sticky sides to the outsides on front and back). Then I quickly sewed them together, cut it to fit my patch, ironed it onto the main panel, and then hand stitched around the edge. 

HINT: make sure to put a cloth over your patch when you iron it on or else the design on the tee-shirt will melt onto your iron. Yes...this happened to me...

6. Lay out your backing, then batting, then your quilt on top of that. Making sure it is all flat, safety pin the 3 layers together. 

7. Quilt the layers together and finish it off with the binding of your choice. 

I chose to hand quilt.What I did was to quilt around the tee-shirt design. It looks pretty cool on the back! 

This is the very first quilt I have ever quilted together. In the future I think I will appreciate machine quilting! 

My fingers became very sore! I tried using my mom's thimbles but it made my fingers feel big and clumsy. 

So here is what I did instead! 

It worked GREAT! :D 

J and I want to take many camping trips in our early married life. So, since this quilt is made out of my old Camp tee-shirts I think it will become our camping quilt! 

I am NOT a quilter and this quilt came together fast and was a lot of fun for me! So if quilting looks ominous to you, try your hands out on an easy quilt like this and see what you think! 

Have fun!!