I have quilted 4 for others and had no trouble at all quilting them. I custom quilted them though and did not quilt over any of painted area's I would worked around that area. They are fun to make!

I think you need something fun to sew and quilt every once in awhile. I find after some easy quilts, I am ready for a challenge. I am feeling that way now, have done a few easy quilts this fall and still doing one, these are mostly baby quilts, now I am finding myself a little bored with them and ready for something with more difficulty.

I've made two. Just make sure you have put sabilized the backs, have fun putting the blocks together. The first one I made was for a high school girl that had played ball all her life, so the t shirts were different sizes. I had one row of smaller shirts, and I tried to use even the backs of the shirts if there was something cute on it. I even put appliques on the front and back. She loved it. The next one made used a variety of shirts, from rock concerts and ball games and high school and college. He loved it. They are very time consuming.

You need to stabilize the tee shirts and I tie mine.

Here's complete instructions:

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/projec...t-quilt_1.html

I have made two over the years, one had Tee shirts of a uniform size so I ironed lightweight interfacing to each one and then cut each one to 16" squares, used a sashing of cotton. Hand sewed, not hand quilted around each square to hold in place. The owner is still using it.
The second one was made of shirts from a man's wife who died and they belonged to a Harley Davidson riding group, all different sizes and shapes of insignia so that one was a challenge.
I cut the insignias larger than I wanted, ironed on the interfacing, cut them to the size I wanted and then basted the pieces onto fabric in an orderly manner. Put the three layers of quilt together and used the blind stitch hemmer to fasten the three layers into one. The man cried when he saw it and paid me extra for my work. There were enough shirts to make him a lap robe and the quilt.
Tee shirts are not easy to work with but I wouldn't quilt over the painted surfaces, you would lose the effect. These are memory quilts and mean so much to the owners.

Carol J.

To solve the problem of different sized motifs, I cut background fabric into larger sections, I think I used 18 X 24. Then I coul fuse various sized motifs to this.

Personally, I think T-shirt quilts are much more interesting when the motifs ARE different sizes.

It allows for various settings, other than a boring 4x6 (or whatever) grid pattern, which is why most look the same.

I agree, I also could get away from having everything straight up and down, could slightly tilt the designs. I also could use the very small pieces as accents for the block.

I intend to make one out of my old sweatshirts from different ski resorts. Any tips on fusing the backs of sweats?