Treasureit

My next quilt will be making a quilt from my grandsons baseball t-shirts. This will be completely new to me and would LOVE....all the advise I can get. What is the best backing to use? What problems did you encounter that I should watch out for? Is adding pictures hard? Is it best to keep it all the same size blocks? Thanks in advance.

Mariposa

You should get some Non-woven fusible interfacing to iron onto the backs of your t-shirts. Do this BEFORE you cut the blocks to size, so that the interfacing will be on the entire block. It really helps to keep the blocks from stretching and getting wonky. Hope this helps!

Deborahlees

I have a t-shirt quilt project that has been sitting in a box for almost two years now....I am scared sh...less to start. It is a life time of shirts from my most favoriate niece. I am afraid of messing it up.....would really appreciate everyones comments also. Bought a book, don't think I have cracked the spine on it yet.....Because these shirts are such one of a kind, I am afraid of mistakes......

stormwater

I've made a t-shirt quilt for each of my two daughters for high school graduation presents. The use of non-woven fusible interfacing was key to keeping things square. There are lots of different weight interfacings, so experiment until you find your favorite balance of stability without creating a cardboard stiff fabric.

It was very important to me not to cut off designs or end up with huge amounts of 'blank' space, so I made blocks in several sizes and grouped them. I ended up liking the non-structured appearance of this kind of layout. I also took the pocket designs from the polo shirts and t-shirts and put them together to make one block.

ALSO - watch your iron temp when fusing the interfacing as it can melt/smear the t-shirt paint!

The only photos I have access to right now are of the top, but here's the top and the 'pocket' block. I'd be happy to provide more details on the planning and layout, so pm me if you'd like.

Mark

wraez

There is a gridded fusible stabilizer that is recommended. I saw a video tutorial and will have to look for it for you to give you an option. I'll be back...

Deborahlees

Many of the t-shirt quilts that I looked at today seem to be all similiar in color. The quilt I have to make will have just about every color in the rainbow. The more I think about it the more I think I should stick to black shashing and borders.....This quilt will be a lifetime of t-shirts....and my niece wants me to include photos....think I will add those on the borders only so as not to distract from the t-shirt squares.....Goodness the more I talk about it the harder it gets.

wraez

Found the video ... http://www.crookednickel.com/index.html go to the bottom right of the page.

you can try a search on YouTube for crooked nickel but it isn't working for me right now ... something about 'script' which I have no clue ...

wraez

the crooked nickel video talks about 'on point' gridded fusible but I bought a whole bolt of straight grid fusible figuring I could lay out my t-shirts in different configurations depending on how big I want the blocks to be, sometimes using parts of the backs, sleeves etc. Not all t-shirts lend themselves to a square block. Don't know if this makes sense. But I do like the idea that I can iron down on a grid which will keep things straight and even for me.

Treasureit

Thanks for the pictures Mark...yours came out great!

Thanks for the crookednickle site too Sue.

I was told by someone to get the thinnest fusible I can find so it will stay soft...is that what others have found?

mucky

I was told to use woven or knit interfacing and liked that look. if you are scars of the project I suggest you try to use all same size blocks but if you can't at least keep the same width in each row and each row can be different and the length can easily be adjusted so each row can be the same length. The first one I did had all sizes of blocks and was a math nightmare.