SuziSew

First welcome to the quilt board, you will find a lot of help from the wonderful people here.

Check out Bonnie Hunter's tutorial "De-boneing a Shirt" http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/...irt-movie.html I've got many of my dad's shirts and plan on using this method.

As for a t-shirt quilt, if you do decide to cut the shirts before putting on the stabilizer, cut them larger to give yourself some leeway. I can also recommend the pizza boxes for storage or pick up some of the 2.5 gallon zip-lock bags so you can label and sort as you go through all of it.

For the crazy quilt the great thing is there's not right or wrong, decide how big of a block you want and you can put them together however you want. If you want something more structured you can get free patterns on google, make your own paper templates for the block size or you might pick up the creative grids scrap crazy rulers for more structure and consistency.

It's wonderful that you want to make things for your family, but it can be an intimidating task so get some or all of them involved in different parts of the processes, don't stress yourself and your husband by doing it alone if you don't have to...hand him some scissors or a rotary cutter! Good luck!

feline fanatic

The only problem with cutting T-shirts and other knits before putting on stablizer is that they tend to curl along the raw cut edges which makes applying the stablizer go less quickly when you are finally ready. I am one of the few who cuts first and then do my iron on stablizer, but I do it right away, cut my square then immediately iron on my stabilizer which has also been cut to the same size as my square. I do get a bit of distortion sometimes but not often and have always been able to use the block with no issues.
A great alternative is to starch the dickens out of them. I would get some sta-flo starch, can usually find it in large jugs in the laundry section of Walmart. Make it fairly strong, like half and half and make it in a bucket or something large enough to simply dunk them. Dip your knits into your starch, wring them out well and hang them on the clothes line to dry. Don't worry if they are a bit wrinkled you can press that out later. Once dry you can "butcher them down" to an oversized cut of what you want to save from the T (usually the logo or imprint). Then, not only can you cut and store them, you may just be able to sew with them without stabilizing. I have heard of people doing this to avoid doing stabilizer but I have never been brave enough to try.

jsews

I am very sorry to hear that your mother passed away. I'd go check out the t shirt quilt from Teaquilts YouTube page. She has a quite awesome tutorial on making t-shirt quilts. Also, there are a lot of other fun ideas posted on there. It sounds like whatever you come up with will create a wonderful tangible item to remember your mother by. Please do keep us updated on the progress of this quilt. I bet it will be really cool.

Still Sew N

I wanted to make my husband a t-shirt quilt but I wanted to try something a bit different. I bought 60" camouflage fabric. I stabilized all the tshirt components. Then I spray basted them in a pleasing manner onto the fabric. I zigzagged around all edges of the t-shirt pieces. I backed it with a gray muted flannel and used 100% cotton batting. I free motion quilted sort of following the camouflage design and bound it in black flannel. He loves it and I got to use every bit of the t-shirts that I wanted as some of the designs were on sleeves or on pockets. It is really OK and quite a bit easier than had I made blocks to be sewn together.

quiltingshorttimer

I always cut t-shirts before stabilizing--just cut them bigger and get rid of hems, sleeves, necks. If you aren't going to put stabilizer on yet you will get some curl on the edges, not a problem when you go to put on stabilizer--you will have to trim them down after you get it on.

an idea I'm doing this year for my siblings is to have a photo of my folks blown up and printed on fabric (at the local t-shirt printing shop, they do great work) and then use my grandmother's lace/lines to frame one for my sister and I've got some Seminole patchwork done in my parents favorite colors to frame the photo for my brother. You could do the same with the clothing--maybe crazy quilts, etc. That would make a quicker memory project for each of your siblings.

illinois

You are going to be amazed at the amount of fabric that can be harvested from these clothes. I have used 6 of my late husband's shirts to make 3--38" square wall hangings, 2 small wall hangings and a queen sized quilt and still have the full backs and most of the fronts left for further consideration. I used Bonnie Hunter's method of deboning the shirts. I also used one of those craft boxes like embroidery floss can be wound on cardboards and put the buttons in those little compartments. Those will be handy for future consideration that buttons in each section will already be matched.