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T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:16 pm
by funkymonkey
I just finished up my first quilt, made out of my old high school shirts, with flannel on the back:
quilt.jpg
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All of the fabric on the top is shirt material; the maroon strips are from my student council buttoned shirt (the logo is in the top right corner). The pinwheels are squares cut from a tie dyed shirt, and the binding around the edges was a pair of old cargo pants. I left some of the original seaming on there so you can tell it was once pants and not just green fabric :)

I am very pleased with how it came out; I ironed super thin interfacing on the back of all the t-shirts to stabilize them, but I didn't do it on the maroon since I thought that fabric was stiff enough. Unfortunately, it stretched a little bit, which is why the pinwheels don't align perfectly.

In addition to this being my first full size (well, lap size) quilt, it was the first time I've tried free motion quilting. I've been so afraid of messing it up that I've never tried it, but it wasn't that bad! (once I got my machine settings right). I ended up cutting out a stencil for the stippling pattern and tracing it across the ENTIRE quilt just to help my confidence on this one. Tracing the stencil took about 4 times as long as actually stitching it! I used invisible thread so it would work across all colors of the shirts.
quilting.jpg
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I am most happy with my hand-stitching down the back side of the binding. I watched a tutorial on youtube because my whip stitch was visible and looked really sloppy. This invisible stitch worked out really well; it almost looks as clean as the machine-sewed front.
quilt-corner.jpg
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Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:35 pm
by Ally
That turned out really good! And such a good idea to reuse old t-shirts. Why, I feel inspired now :)

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 1:31 pm
by blackmageheart
That's amazing for your first quilt! Love the upcycling of t-shirts too. Great job! :D

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 2:53 pm
by Pyper
This is a fantastic idea :) And it turned out looking great too.

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:29 am
by lcockitt
I've been meaning to do something similar with my Uni Tshirts for ages, can't wait to try! I love the detail of the pinwheels, and the logos on the borders. The pattern you've quilted is really nice as well. Fantastic!

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 11:45 am
by starrley
This looks amazing! (Just like everything else you make.) :)

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 2:15 am
by Eliste
That turned out really well!

Re: T-Shirt Quilt

Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 6:23 am
by tnitnetny
Be careful with the invisible thread. If it isn't 100% cotton then it may not wash well or shrink at the same rate as the batting and backing. Just something to keep in mind.

It looks great though! Good job with the quilting.