Busy Geemaw: T-shirt quilt

I was cleaning out our attic and getting all the stuff out that belongs to my youngest son. I sorted, donated, tossed and repacked the items he wanted to keep. Then I packed all his belongings he wanted to use that was still at my house and drove them to Indiana. In one of the boxes there was a bunch of t-shirts and sweatshirts that he had from Elementary school, youth hockey, concerts and just some old favorites. I brought my sewing machine with me on the trip and planned on making him a quilt while I was at my sister Lynn's house in Ohio.

The first step was to pick out the shirts I knew I wanted to use, and whether I wanted to use just the front, or both front the back. It ended up being 20 pieces that I would use for the quilt. Then we needed to determine what size we would make our squares by using the shirt that had the longest and widest print on it. We came up with a 15 x 15 inch square and a 1/2 inch seam, so we cut the squares 16x16. The quilt will be 4 squares across and 5 squares down for a total of 20 squares. Because I had 5 shirts that were smaller than the rest, and were not big enough to cut 16x16, so we cut them 15x16 for a 14x15 square with a 1/2 inch seam. These 5 pieces have to be on the end row so they will not throw off me being able to line up the rows and match the corners of the pieces.

This is a rough cut of the shirt, up the sides and across the top just under the rib of the neck.

We went through the roll of interfacing and cut 20 squares 17 x 17.

I brought some iron on Pella interfacing with me and we bought 3 1/2 yards of 59 inch wide gray sweatshirt fabric for the back. Now I was ready to cut the shirts. I cut the shirts up the side, and up through the sleeve to give me a larger surface area. Then my sister cut 20 interfacing squares 17 x 17. Next, I ironed one of the interfacing squares onto the back of each of the cut shirt pieces making sure that the interfacing was covering the total printed surface of the shirt.

I ironed the interfacing to the back of the cut shirt.

Now that the shirt pieces are nice and stiff I can put them on the cutting mat, and using a rotary cutter I can cut them into evenly cut squares. Fifteen shirts are cut into 16 x 16 squares and five are cut into 15 (width) x 16 (long) squares.

This was one of the smaller shirts that I cut 15 x 16

This shirt was cut 16 x 16.

The next step was to lay the squares on the floor to figure out where I wanted to place each square, knowing that the smaller 5 had to be on one end. Once I had all the pieces where I wanted them I stacked them in order, starting from the left and placing that one on top then going one cross row at a time.

All the squares are laid out, and keeping the 5 smaller pieces on the left end I arranged the squares how I thought they looked the best.

Time to sew! I took the first cross row that was stacked with the squares stacked with the farthest left square on top. Then using a 1/2 inch seam I sewed the squares together starting from the left to right. after the first row was sewn together I folded up the sewn row, and started on the second row sewing it in the same order. I did this for all 5 rows and all had the short squares on the left. Now all the rows are folded and stacked with the top row on the bottom of the stack. I turned the stack over and now the top row was on the top of the stack.

The first two squares were sewn together.

One of the finished rows

Next step is to sew the rows together. I pinned the top row to the second row matching all the corners of the squares. Next, I sewed the top two rows to the third row. Then I sewed the bottom two rows together, and then sewed the to sections together. My sister had me do it this way as a safe guard that the rows stay straight. I am not sure how that made a difference, but she was the expert and I followed directions, lol.

I sewed the top three rows together, then the bottom two rows were sewn together.

I now have the top squares all sewn together and I ironed all the seams open on the back. Before I sew the back on the quilt, I decided to sew some embellishments on to the front of some of the shirt squares. I had a sleeve with a patch, an abstract hockey player from a jersey, jersey numbers and patches all to be sew on the front of my quilt.

This patch was sewn on the front before I pinned the front and back together.

This was the sleeve and cuff from the t-shirt that was sew on by machine.

The abstract hockey player was sew on by tacking it with navy blue thread on the middle parts to help hold it in place and keep it from bubbling up. Then I top stitched it around the edges with white thread. All the numbers and patches were sewn on by machine.

Now that the front is done it is time to pin the front to the back sweatshirt fabric, right sides together. I laid the front of the quilt on the kitchen island right side up. Then I laid the back fabric on top of the front piece right side down, and smoothing as I go I pinned the two pieces together leaving a 20 inch opening at the bottom to turn in right side out after sewing.

I laid the t-shirt front side up on the island and then laid the backing fabric on top right sides together. I then sewed them together leaving a section open to turn the quilt right side out.

After sewing a 1/2 seam all around and turning the piece right side out I ironed the side seams to flatten the edges. Then I pinned the opening used to turn the quilt, I pinned the opening closed and top stitched the opening closed.

All the inside corners were pinned in preparation for sewing on ties to keep the front and backing tacked together.

Next, I laid the quilt on the floor front side up. I smoothed the quilt out and taking large safety pins I pinned the front to the back at the 12 inside corners where four squares meet. Then using 6 strands of embroidery floss, and an embroidery needle, I put the needle down one edge of the corner and up the opposite corner. Pulling the needle off the floss I tied the floss in a square knot and trimmed the floss pieces short. Now the front and backing are tacked together.