KittyD

My thoughts are - are some of the T-shirts your sister's & some belong to her husband? If so, how about making 2 lap size quilts - 1 for her & 1 for him? Traditionally T-shirt quilts are heavy and I don't think they will be able to handle a king size quilt. I also agree that maybe you could cut the T-shirts smaller. Just some suggestions for you to think about.

Carol34446

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pL36s08wg4
Try her method, no bindings to sew between pieces. Let us know how you like it. Sounds easy.

Kelly_Y

They asked for a quilt for their bed and I did promise them one. Not going to back out on that. I've made a tee shirt quilt for my own double bed in the past. It did end up on the heavy side, but I think that has more to do with using too much batting.

One thing I'm considering is making the top in quarters, then sewing those together. That should keep thing more manageable then working row by row.

And thanks everyone for the advice so far. Keep it coming.

Cherylsea

My friend does king quilts and this is what she does: She puts together a row and quilts it (using her embroidery machine). Then she adds the next row and quilts that. Then the next. That way you are only working on one row at a time and the bulk is to your left not under the machine. She has done 4 quilts this way.
otherwise, doing it in quarters may be the easiest.

cricket_iscute

Cherylsea, may I clarify something with you? Not to be difficult here (I am coming from a computer geek background), but are you describing rows that are horizontal or columns that are vertical? If you are describing vertical columns, it seems like a brilliant suggestion, and I thank you for it.

For the big t-shirt quilt, I would suggest quilting each block by itself, all three layers. Then join rows and columns with thin sashing strips. There are plenty of tutorials on the internet.

AliKat

My hands don't like most of the QAYG methods. However, I do have some really friendly LQS's and once a top was finished I called and made an appointment to use their large class tables to layout my sandwich and baste. [Before I had my HQ, of course.] Then I just rolled it all up and used my DSM.
With using my DSM I had a small table or ironing board behind my sewing cabinet and a small adjustable table to my left. This gave me ample room to just do FMQ or whatever.

nhlady52

You can always try using your library. Sometimes they will let you go in to put a couple of tables together and you can lay it out and spray baste together or pin together.

maviskw

Originally Posted by AZ Jane
Playing devils advocate here but are you sure you want to make a king size quilt? Will they really use it on their bed? Usually a t-shirt quilt is geared toward one person, so a lap/snuggle/over the back of the couch size may make more sense in the long run. Could you somehow make those blocks smaller, not sure as much blank t0shirt space, trim more to the design? Just a thought, unless you are determined to go king.
Originally Posted by KittyD
My thoughts are - are some of the T-shirts your sister's & some belong to her husband? If so, how about making 2 lap size quilts - 1 for her & 1 for him? Traditionally T-shirt quilts are heavy and I don't think they will be able to handle a king size quilt. I also agree that maybe you could cut the T-shirts smaller. Just some suggestions for you to think about.

I'm with these quotes. It will be huge. You could take four of those squares and make pillow cases or sham covers. Two on each sham. Or you could make them double sided; that would use eight of the squares. I just think the quilt will be huge with them all in one quilt.

Jingle

I would make them each a lap size cover. How will they wash and dry it. Not as many laundry mats around here as use to be. I hate laundry mats.

Kelly_Y

I've done this on a previous tee shirt quilt and it worked. I'm debating between that technique here or finishing the top as once piece then hiring out a longarmer.

Being a computer guy by day, I hit on a solution for the problem of having no space big enough to lay out the whole top.

I've got a setup for photographing the squares as I finish them, and I'm loading them into an image editor as layers to lay them out digitally. Like so: