I started working on creating a t-shirt quilt of some sort last year, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. Well, now that Jessi isn't around to wear the hundreds of t-shirts stacked in the basement, I decided to make her a quilt with all of the old shirts she won't be able to wear. Monika thinks she won't be happy to find I've cut up her old swim team shirts, but when'll she ever have the time to wear them now? She's in uniform and pretty much gone for the next 10 years. Now she can wear all of them all at once every night!
Here's how I did it:
1) I used a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper to cut up about 40 squares, making sure the design was centered. I used about 30 shirts since some had backs that I could use, but most did not. I doubled up fabric for thin and white shirts.
2) I ironed on fusible interface to all of the backs of the t-shirt designs to add a bit of stiffness for handling.
3) I laid out the squares onto a 60X90 piece of fleece I had purchased for this project this morning.
4) I used a ball point needle on my sewing machine with quilting thread to sew up each strip of 8 squares (I cheated and squeezed more then 8 on the first strip).
5) I sewed the 5 strips to each other and turned it face down onto the fleece and sewed 3 of the 4 sides together. I turned it right side up and sewed the bottom up and added an sewed edge to other three for a more finished look.
6) I'm thinking I will add green string into each of the corners tomorrow to help keep the two sides joined, as well as a bit of flare. It looks great on Jessi's bed!!
I managed to get the whole project done in one day after walking Balt this morning, a break at 1pm for a swim and another break at 5pm for a walk to Starbucks and an iced tea break. I ordered pizza for dinner. I love getting a big project like this done! That's what summer is for.
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