How Do I Make a T-shirt Quilt?

jean leiner

April 24, 20110 found this helpful

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.

Ash

April 27, 20110 found this helpful

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!