Through our teenage years (OK, still to this day), my brother and I went to hundreds of concerts. It's all we'd ever spend our hard-earned chore money on. We've collected many a precious T-shirt while following our favorite bands on tours.
Now we have outgrown them, but wanting to keep them alive for our memories, we've had our mother turn the T-shirts into quilts. This one here is the first quilt my mother ever tried making, so trying with old T-shirts was good practice for her and just an amazing recycled gift for us! Even though it's a bit crooked, we cherish it more than you can imagine. All our favorite bands now keep us warm at night. Sweet dreams.
By attosa from Los Angeles, CA
This page contains the following solutions.
As I was getting ready for college, I realized two things: one, I had too many t-shirts. Two, I loathed parting with said T-shirts. Here's how to keep those well-worn memories fun and useful.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I live in BC and am looking for someone that makes t shirt quilts?
You will need to find someone in your area who makes these or choose to mail your T-shirts to someone in another area (or the USA). Shipping will probably be expensive.
Start with Google - who makes T-shirt quilts with your area code and from what I have found there will be a lot of sites come up. You can check out the ones closest to you but be sure to read any comments so you can be sure of the workmanship provided.
Here is a link to check:
sparrowquiltco.com/
If you are not familiar with the prices quilters are charging this link with give you an idea (prices run about the same all over).
These shops are in the US but this link will show what you'll find on Google. Be sure to read what past buyers say about their purchase.
www.google.com/
This is funny because I literally do this www.artsnquilts.com/
Here is a piece I made with t-shirts (in 2017 portfolio section: www.artsnquilts.com/
I live nowhere near you but you can contact me off my site www.artsnquilts.com/
aside from that, my advice would be to contact a local quilt guild in your area. www.quiltguilds.com/
ONe of the quilters is bound to know how to do this and willing to do it for you
I would live to learn how to make a t-shirt quilt. I have all the materials that are called for "except" a sewing machine. at this time I am unable to afford one. Can anyone explain step by step how to make one by hand; no machine please?
By Melonie S.
The following link takes you to pages and pages of quilting info, including how to do it by hand:
The guide there even has pages with hand stitches to get a sturdy quilt from piecing to binding. Enjoy, quilting is one of the most relaxing and creative of the textile arts:)
How would you make a t-shirt quilt?
By georgie300 from Waco, TX
I googled how to make a tee shirt quilt, and found sites with directions. The site that seemed easiest to follow was called Quiltbug.com.
Here are the basic steps I followed to make mine (also I'm no seamstress so the terminology isn't going to be right):
1) Find the shirt with the biggest pattern / section that you want to keep in one piece and draw a square on a piece of cardboard that is about an inch larger than the design on all sides.
2) Using that cardboard square, draw squares on the wrong side of the other T-shirt pieces and cut so you have a stack of squares. (I used a few 'front' sides also if I needed some to fill in or just liked them for whatever reason.
3) Lay the sections out on the floor to see what looks good. Make sure you don't put two white squares together, etc.
4) Sew them together one row at a time using 1" seam allowance (or whatever seam allowance you like) and then sew the rows together in the same manner.
(Disclaimer: I'm a little bit fuzzy on exactly how the rest went because it was awhile ago, but I think these instructions are right:)
5) If you are using batting, cut batting to the size of the quilt and sew around the edges. You may need to use two pieces.
6) Sew together fabric that will make up the underside of the quilt (if necessary) and cut fabric so that you have one large section of fabric that 1" larger than the t-shirt section on all sides
7) Press 1/2" hem around the underside fabric (folded in towards wrong side).
8) Lay the underside fabric wrong side up (so you see the raw edges of the hem). Lay the t-shirt section right side up on top, centered (a measuring thingy will help). Then fold fabric edges to make a border and sew in place as close to the edge of the hem as possible ( so about 1/2" from edge of quilt).
The seam allowances are approximate, you may want a larger or smaller border... it might be easier without the border but I think it looks nice. The rest of the quilt is pretty simple, no fabric in between the t-shirts or anything but that could be added pretty easily as well. I love mine. Good luck!
I'm looking for advice on making a T-shirt quilt using polar fleece. My daughter is thinking we can fuse the back of t-shirts, sew them to a fleece square, then tie the squares together for one side, then tie that side to the backing. Any ideas if this will work?
By Marcy from NE
Why not just cut the front of the t-shirts off and just sew the front to the square of fleece. I have seen pictures of quilts where the squares are tied together, but they have used different materials. My thought is that the t-shirts might be more stretchable than the fleece, and you could end up with something that gets out of shape.
Different t-shirts also have a different amount of stretch. I have seen where people make quilts out of t -shirts but they just use the fronts of the tee shirts cut into squares and sewed together and then proceed like for any quilt. If this is because your daughter wants to use some of her t-shirts in a quilt for keepsakes, I have used some of my daughters t-shirts and made throw pillows out of them. I cut the front and back parts into the size square that I want and sew them together, leaving one end open in order to either insert a pillow form or to stuff it with fiber fill and then sew the open end up.
I'm looking for instructions for making a t-shirt blanket. Does anyone have any?
By Angela Sullivan from Waurika, OK
Here is one from right here on thriftyfun:
www.thriftyfun.com/
or: www.straw.com/
