mannem38

I've been asked to make a t-shirt quilt. The problem for me is, how do I keep the back and front aligned on my new mid arm quilter? Wouldn't it shift? Help PLZ

ManiacQuilter2

I never added more weight to a t-shirt quilt by putting more weight on the backing. I hope you don't get any skipped stitches when you start quilting. Yes, it is difficult to have to line up blocks on the back to the front. Be careful not to sew thru any plastic on the shirts on the back.

mannem38

Thanks MQ, never thought about the added weight.

Tartan

It is hard enough to avoid the plastic decals while quilting on the front and I think it would be worse with different ones on the back.

feline fanatic

You don't specify if your midarm is a sitdown model or mounted on a frame. Both ways it is darn near impossible to line up the top with the bottom. Some have done it but I will not attempt it. I have quilted two double sided T-shirt quilts on my longarm on the frame and in both cases I quilted an E2E design and did not make any effort to not quilt through the Tshirt imprints. I will only work with silkscreen imprints. I weed out any T-shirts that have the iron on type rubbery ones.

Here are links to the two I have done
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...ts-t95274.html
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...t-t209647.html

tessagin

If it were me I believe I would baste problem areas or you could use fusible web.

MsHeirloom

I have done this on several tee-shirt quilts when the customer had many, many shirts. i designed the front with sashing and using the most important tee-shirts. For the back I used all the rest and just sewed them side by side. In other words, there were more, less interesting tee-shirts on the back. This also eliminated any need to line things up. I interfaced all the squares with fusible tricot interfacing. Yes! The quilts were very heavy, but each one was very well-received and resulted in repeat customers.

quiltingshorttimer

that will be one very heavy quilt! Because of all the issues others have given you, I will not do a double sided one for customers--plus I quilt on a long arm and there is just no way to line up front/back perfectly so too many hassles. Perhaps you can get them to pick their "top" t-shirts---I have used a special t on the back for a label.

mannem38

Thank you all for your great suggestions. After talking to the customer, she would rather have two quilts than one misaligned. This would only be my fifths quilt on my BlockRockIt on a 10 ft. frame and I have a lot to learn.