<p>I agree with that sentiment…on the face of it, $240 for a throw seems like a lot…but when you look at it in terms of cost per shirt or per square which is only $10…well that hardly seems fair for that amount of work. </p>
<p>Btw…my husband still has a red CocaCola t-shirt from 1976. It was his good luck exam shirt and he refuses to toss it.</p>
<p>Counting down (or others who are in the sew-know)…
Once the squares are sewn together, how is it “quilted”? Along the edges of the squares? Through the squares? I don’t want to mess up the actual square itself, but do you just leave the whole thing separated from the batting/backing?</p>
<p>
My wife, who is also a fabric/artist/quilter/sewer type and has made a number of t-shirt quilts for others, says the exact same thing. A nicely done quilt can take a lot of time.</p>
<p>Also, for T-Shirt quilts, they can come out much nicer than just putting a t-shirt in a square and ending up with a matrix of t-shirts. This is where the ‘artist’ part comes in. They can also be mixed with other memorabilia including photos transferred to fabric.</p>
<p>After reading this thread last month, I ordered a quilt from <a href=“http://www.tshirtquilt.com%5B/url%5D”>www.tshirtquilt.com</a>. It just arrived today and it came out great - better than I ever expected.</p>
<p>S bought a tshirt at each college he visited but never really got into wearing them once he got home. I decided to have them put together on a quilted throw that he can use at school. It makes a nice remembrance of our college visits from the last couple of years. If anyone’s interested in seeing a picture of how it came out, PM me and I’ll send you a link. :)</p>
<p>doubleplay, I just saw your question (I’ve been on vacation…). If you’re still here, one can quilt by running cord or yarn through the corner of each quilt square and tying it, or by quilting the fabric portions of the quilt (not the shirts). Depends on how much work you want to make of it. I do a lot of free-motion quilting on my wall hangings, and I love the way it looks, but I’m not sure I’d do dense free-motion on a quilt. If one were really motivated, one could quilt patterns onto the fabric layers.</p>
<p>I’m bumping this thread for myself, so I can find it again! D cleaned out her dresser drawers and handed me an armload of commemorative t-shirts, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with them. She said she would have just put them in the Goodwill box, but thought maybe I wouldn’t go along with that! They are from music programs, various schools (including her German high school), and other events. I sew quite well, but have not done much quilting, and never with t-shirt material.</p>
<p>binx, there are instructions on the internet for making t-shirt quilts. It seems like a fairly simple quilt to make. To make the t-shirt material work for quilting, I think you have to iron on fusible interfacing or sew the t-shirt blocks onto muslin. I’m planning on making one for my D using all of her old t-shirts and sweatshirts.</p>
<p>I do them on commission so I have made many over the years. For any of you wanting to do it yourself, these are easy instructions from my sorority magazine. My own way is in CAPS.</p>
<p>Directions:
Select 30 T-shirts. Using a 14" square piece of glass (available at a lumber yard) as a template, cut the fronts from the T-shirts using a rotary cutter. The glass is heavy enough to hold the shirt while cutting and transparent so you can see if the shirt is centered. Cut a 14" square of light-weight muslin and stitch to the back of each block to stabilize it.
I USE A CLEAR OMNIGRID 15 X 15 QUILTING RULER INSTEAD OF GLASS. I USE GRIDDED (MARKED IN 1 INCH SQUARES) FUSIBLE INTERFACING INSTEAD OF STITCHING LIGHTWEIGHT MUSLIN. IT STABILIZES THE STRETCHY T-SHIRT FABRIC BETTER. BE CAREFUL WHEN IRONING! SOMETIMES THE DESIGN MIGHT MELT IF IT’S NOT SILKSCREENED. </p>
<p>Sew T-shirt blocks together, matching corners. Or, for a different look, sew a strip on each side of the square, then sew the strips together. Alberta first used a 3 ½" wide black strip, taking ½" seams. On another, she accented the black strip with a 3 ½" gold square at the corners – using Missouri school colors.
DITTO, I USE 3.5" SASHING.</p>
<p>To finish the top, lay the quilt and backing on the floor, right sides together. Pin, then stitch all around, leaving a 24" opening in one of the long sides. Return the quilt to the floor. Cut the batting to the exact size and lay it on top of the quilt. (Alberta used extra loft.) With a friend, roll the quilt backing and batting from corners as tightly as possible – rolling toward the opening. Stretch the opening over the huge roll of cotton and fabric and turn your quilt right side out. Unroll it carefully, working out any bumps or wrinkles. Stitch closed.
I SAFETY-PIN THE QUILT SANDWICH (BACKING, BATTING, TOP) TOGETHER, QUILT IT, BIND IT AFTER RATHER THAN MAKING A QUILT PILLOW. IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO GET ALL THE WRINKLES OUT FROM THE TURN-RIGHTSIDE-OUT METHOD.</p>
<p>For tying you can use yarn, all six strands of embroidery floss, pearl cotton, or heavy crochet thread. The quilt should be tied about every four inches in a square or surgeon’s knot. Alberta tied her quilts on the wrong side, but says that tying on either side would work.
I MACHINE QUILT IT, USUALLY BY HIGHLIGHTING THE SHIRT DESIGNS AND STIPPLING THE SASHING.</p>
<hr>
<p>In terms of selecting a fabric that will coordinate yet contrast with the tshirts’ vibrant, bold, LARGE designs, I tend to go with a batik. Batiks are wax-resist dyed fabrics that are stunning. The colors are subtle and unique, yet blend together in an eye-pleasing way.</p>
<p>If your shirts have a theme and you can find fabric with a similar theme, you could go with that. When my D graduated from hs, we didn’t realize how many tshirts she had from clubs, sports, Scouts and other ECs. We ended up making 2 quilts. The first quilt had 16 shirts that were purchased at specific competitions of her sport. A couple of months before, I happened to find a novelty fabric depicting women competing in her sport and luckily I had bought enough. The much larger quilt had 30 shirts and used a batik that incorporated slightly paler shades of her high school colors.</p>
<p>Motherdear, thanks for those tips. I think I prefer your method over your sorority’s - it sounds a little easier to iron on the interfacing than to sew on the muslin. Also, I have used the safety-pin method on the the “quilt sandwich” and found that it works very well. I have never tried tying a quilt, but I think it might look nice on a t-shirty quilt. Normally, I hand quilt and haven’t touched a sewing machine since I was in seventh grade. Now, I just have to go through those shirts and see if I have 30 of them. I may have to wait another year or so, as I was thinking of doing a double sided quilt - one side of t-shirts and one of sweatshirts.</p>
<p>I love the suggestion of using batik fabric for the sashing. I really couldn’t think of what would look best, but I think batik might work out really well.</p>
<p>I made one for my son for a Christmas present. I just used the shirts, with no borders. Also did the hand knotting as it seemed that it would be hard to get all that fabric in machine to do machine quilting (probably because I used a fleece backing). Also did the iron on interfacing which worked well. He seemed to love it and is using it as a throw at school. I used 12" blocks.</p>
<p>Thanks also for the tips. I don’t have enough t-shirts yet, but suspect if I told my D what I was doing with them, she might contribute a few more that she wasn’t quite ready to give to Goodwill, but doesn’t wear much.</p>
<p>I used to sew quite a bit for my D when she was younger. I am wondering if I have enough fabric left over from those clothes to use as filler. Most of it is not traditional quilt material, so it could end up being a crazy quilt of sorts.</p>
<p>I would definitely prefer the machine quilting. I’m not a huge fan of tying, and I know handquilting would take me forever. I love to sew, but not by hand! Not sure my machine could handle large bulk, though. Only quilts I’ve ever done have been pillow or baby blanket sized.</p>
<p>Binx…if you don’t have enough shirts, you could use the coordinating fabric to make some quilt squares to put in.</p>
<p>Great information, I’ve been saving shirts for years for this purpose, I’d seen one but had no idea how to make it. I think I’ll have to wait a couple of more years before I start, I’m taking the highlights and their favorites, so basically it will be a Here’s You’re Life quilt, from Ninja Turtles, scouting, high school activities to college.</p>
<p>You can quilt a big, bulky quilt on a non-commercial non-longarm machine. </p>
<p>From the CC sewing machine thread–I don’t have a longarm and I have successfully quilted many bedsize quilts. The key is to tightly roll an edge to the middle and fasten bicycle clips around the rolled tube-like section. Always quilt from the center out. Most importantly, baste in 2" intervals either with safety-pins or with thread.</p>
<p>There are domestic sewing machines that have a longer bed of about 9". Janome makes one and there may be other brands as well.</p>
<hr>
<p>In terms of enough shirts, 30 shirts makes a double-queen. My D raised her twin at school on double cinderblocks and the quilt drop is long enough to just clear the floor thus hiding her stuff stored under the bed.</p>
<p>When you have a non-grid number or a number that results in a grid you don’t like, just bump out rows. I did a quilt for a Mizzou grad that incorporated 18 shirts. She originally thought of making it 6x3 which would have been very long and skinny. I suggested a 4x5 grid with the 2nd and 4th row only having 3 shirts instead of 4 and offsetting the 3shirt rows. She liked that idea better so we went with it.</p>
<p>If you use scrap fabric, you could always put interfacing on the plain parts of the tshirts to have coordinating fabric. One quilt I designed used the mini breast pocket designs as well as the largescale design on the back. I took fabric from the sleeves of some of the other shirts combined with the mini designs to make a crazy quilt block to match the size of the fullsize blocks. This way everything still coordinated and it wasn’t too busy.</p>
<p>Just got the guys to go through old t-shirts and have a respectable pile of shirts with a theme of various family vacations. (We always bought t-shirts as souvenirs.) Suspect this will be DS2’s quilt for college…</p>
<p>Am designing a geometric 9-patch for DS1 based on one of his favorite math movies.</p>
<p>I need more hours in the day!</p>
<p>Math movies? Do tell!</p>
<p>I used to make Mathson cupcakes with math equations (or words in foreign languages) that equalled the current birthday. It was fun and easy and the teachers always got a kick out of it.</p>
<p>Yes, I need to know about the math movies, also.</p>
<p>CountingDown,</p>
<p>Do you use EQ or are you designing it on paper?</p>
<p>Motherdear,
I do everything on graph paper. Have to have the pencil in my hand to get the creative juices flowing! However, while I may have a design on paper, I generally change things on the fly.</p>
<p>The summer program SD went to a year and a half ago had a movie night featuring movies with math. I’ll have to get DS to give me a list (he just came in from a friend’s and staggered upstirs to sleep). I know his favorite one is a short put out by the Film Board of Canada. It’s animated geometry – but when he showed me the film, I saw quilting opportunities!!</p>
<p>Here are 2 punny Pi/PIE quilt blocks! 
[Howstuffworks</a> “Apple Pie Quilt Block”](<a href=“http://home.howstuffworks.com/apple-pie-quilt-block.htm]Howstuffworks”>Apple Pie Quilt Block | HowStuffWorks)</p>
<p>or if you prefer paper-piecing: <a href=“http://quickquilts.com/pbp/pbp604_foundations.pdf[/url]”>http://quickquilts.com/pbp/pbp604_foundations.pdf</a></p>
<p>To make it mathematical, just use numerical novelty fabric.</p>
<p>A different perspective on quilting
[\</a> komplexify.com » Bedspread mathematics](<a href=“http://komplexify.com/blog/2007/06/09/bedspread-mathematics/]\\”>Bedspread mathematics | KOMPLEXIFY!)</p>