T-Shirt Quilt

I admit, I am a packrat. I try not to let it get too out of hand, but I have a hard time getting rid of something when I can look at it and see how it can be used in another way. If I can recycle things, or donate to a good cause, I will. But I just have a hard time throwing perfectly good, but no longer needed, things away. And that happens constantly. My husband has just learned to live with it, bless him, but I do try to keep everything in plastic totes in one closet.

My oldest son and I were very involved in biking, both mountain and road, when he was in high school. I continued after both boys had left the nest and it became the center of my social life (I was single then). Every biking event we participated in or volunteered for gave us a t-shirt. So I had a pile of t-shirts that had memories attached to them and most didn't fit any more (sadly). What to do with all those t-shirts? Why, make a t-shirt quilt, of course.

I used a 12-1/2" square quilter's ruler and centered it over the design in the shirt, marked and cut. This gives you a quarter inch seam around a 12" square, so keep that in mind when marking and cutting. I kept it simple, in part because this was my first ever quilt, and stitched the squares together in a 4 square by 5 square layout--20 squares total. 

I backed it with a piece of dark grey fleece (because my son likes gray), in part because it is 90 miles to the nearest fabric store and I could buy fleece locally. Fleece is also quite snuggly and I was intending this to be an easy care, lap robe type of quilt-something to snuggle under in the recliner. 

I then stitched around parts of each block, about 1/4" from the image, with a running stitch using 3 strands of embroidery floss. Not fancy, but durable for a single guy. I chose colors of floss to match colors in the design. I also added some novelty buttons, just for fun.

I used a purchased blanket binding in black and stitched it to the quilt using this method, which made it super easy to make mitered corners, even for a rank beginner like me. I hand stitched the back side of the quilt binding.

I am quite pleased with the results, however, there are some things I would do differently. 

• The large piece of fleece was hard to work with because it is so stretchy. I would change to flannel for coziness and cut it in squares to match the t-shirt squares. I'd choose two or three coordinating colors/patterns to make the quilt some what reversible.
• I'd quilt my squares first and add more dimension to the images in the t-shirts, maybe even stuffing them a little.
• I'd put it together like a rag quilt, leaving raw flannel edges on the back for a reversible effect--t-shirt on one side, flannel rag quilt on the other. I just like the look of rag quilts.
• I'd make my binding rather than buying the shiny blanket binding. Purely personal preference because the colors and patterns are so limited, at least here where I live.