Sepher

I'm making a t shirt quilt out of my daughter's old clothes. All of the clothes that I've selected are the same type of 100% cotton that stretches (think of onesies and things like that). I started cutting fabric and putting a bit of tissue paper between the fabric blocks as I sewed them together. That was just my makeshift way of dealing with the stretch. It seems to be working well. The back of the quilt will not be made of t shirt type fabric. It will be cotton that doesn't stretch. The size of the quilt is still to be determined. I'm thinking it will be in the neighbor of 5'x5' when I'm done? Smaller than a twin bed spread for sure but larger than a baby blanket.

I would like to have it long armed when I'm done. But will that be a problem since I'm not using fusible interfacing? I guess I could rip out all my sewing so far and start using it, but I think I'd cry if it came to that! What would you do in my shoes? (And any recommendations for someone who could long arm this would be great!)

Quiltinggal

I saw a demo at our guild's winter retreat. The woman who made the T-shirt quilt did not use any interfacing in her quilt since her whole top was made of T-shirts. She used the plain backs of a variety of T-shirts for any fillers she needed. She uses her longarm to quilt these T-shirt quilts and her back was of a different material.

Here's her trick. She sews a temporary border of cotton fabric to the T-shirt top. This keeps the top square and will not stretch as she puts it one her longarm. When the quilting is complete she takes off the border and often saves it for her next t-shirt quilt.

Jim's Gem

Welcome to the board from Southern California!

hobbykat1955

Diff need some type of stabilizer or it will stretch like crazy...

ckcowl

you need to contact the long-arm quilter you want to quilt your quilt and see what she would like- it might not be a problem- but a fix-easier than taking anything apart would be to just add a lightweight muslin (or other interfacing) to the whole top when it is completed-would not have to be fusable- could just be basted onto the back as a stablizer.
but check with the quilter to see- different quilters are going to have different fixes= and some will not quilt t-shirt quilts no matter what you use....it's all a personal thing...if you have a quilter who is experienced quilting tshirt quilts she may not need you to do anything- or have the perfect (fix)

Xtgirl

I've been reading and thinking about this. I bought a book that had a persons method and she doesn't use interfacing but everyone else does and I didn't risk it when I did my racing t shirt quilt or my daughters baby clothes quilt. When I get a long arm I am going to try one without and see how it goes cause the interfacing part sure takes a long time. If you doit without can you put a picture up after it's done and tell us what you think?

valleyquiltermo

That works, I do that also.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: WELCOME to the board.

Sepher

Thank you for all the replies!

Xtgirl - Was it the "Too Cool" method? I searched online and saw that she long arms without interfacing. Her website says she can longarm quilts that use her method. But I didn't know if I was using her method or not. I corresponded with her about it but couldn't get much info as far as if I was following her method. Maybe she wanted me to buy her book? I don't know. She was very polite though.

In any case, does anyone know a source who could longarm this quilt? I don't mind taking steps to fix it. Just anything besides taking it all apart.

hcarpanini

I am a long arm quilter who has quilted many of these quilts. I love when my customers use fusible interfacing on the back of the shirts. It really makes them lay nice and flat. It really isn't that expensive and only takes a few minutes per shirt to prepare.

jaciqltznok

the interfacing does TWO jobs really..the most obvious is to keep the knits from stretching/moving, the second is to keep the KNIT from wearing thin over time! the more movement it has, the more friction, the more wear...I would always fuse with the French/tricot fusible.