I’ve made 3 quilts in my life. One is kind of un-usable, I call it a crazy quilt, one was a gift to Andy: the grey scale quilt, and one was a small t-shirt quilt. Both the Andy quilt and the tiny t-shirt quilt, I paid someone else to quilt them for me. I want to learn how to make an entire quilt myself! I’ve enlisted some experts because I’m a big fat quilting mess! I’ve teamed up with Carolina from 30 Minute Crafts and Tami from Enchanted Desert Quilters to teach us how to make an easy t shirt quilt from start to finish. They’re quilting pros! So follow along as we get free t-shirt quilting lessons on google + every Wednesday in March. (I’ll be posting re-caps here with pics and the live lesson!)
- The first of the 3-part Google hang out series is about: supplies, cutting the t-shirt blocks and interfacing the blocks
- The 2nd video is about piecing the t-shirt squares, sewing fabric around the t-shirts, sewing the squares together, and making the back of the quilt
- The 3rd video is about quilting and binding the quilt
How to make a t-shirt quilt:
Below, is a list of questions and answers from the video above.
What is long arming?
Tami Bradley from the Enchanted Desert Quilter describes long arming as “a sewing machine on steroids”. “I’ve got a big sewing machine head on a gimble and have 360 degrees of movement and it sits on a 12 foot table. I can roll it back and forth and around in circles. I have two machines, a Statler Stitcher which is a computer drive machine Gammill Classic which is the traditional hand guided machine.”
What do you need to make a T-shirt Quilt?
How do you cut T-shirts for a T-shirt quilt?
Should you use brand new t-shirts for a quilt?
What are color catcher sheets?
Why do you cut 13 inch blocks with the interfacing?
What is the difference between pressing and ironing?
Which side of the interfacing do you stick to the t-shirt?
Comments & Reviews
I am a quilter and longarmer. I make so many teeshirt quilts. my tip to anyone who makes these
buy a Tshirt press. Saves so much time from fusing all those shirts.
How many t shirts do you need?
depends on how big you want the quilt.
Shoot. I have a ton of tee-shirts from running races, but I don’t think I have the patience for creating even a simple quilt. 🙂 Just shared this on Pinterest (for the Blogtalk thingie today). 🙂
I can sew basic things, but I don’t think I’m quite ambitious enough for a quilt just yet! 😉 Can’t wait to see yours!
Angela
I recently got back to making these — I have an unfinished one of my own with embroidered T-shirts and have just started one for my daughter with her collection of shirts. One suggestion: Try to get the stretch of the interfacing going the other way from the T-shirt stretch, i.e. the shirt stretches horizontally and putting the interfacing stretch vertically makes the whole square more stabile.
Love this series. I’ve always wanted to make a t-shirt quilt! Time to gather up the old t-shirts!!!
YAY! I have been waiting for this for EVER! Thanks! Can’t wait!!! 😀
I’m so excited you’re doing this! I’ve been saving my tshirts for years to make one but havn’t yet because I didn’t know the best way to make one! Interfacing is the trick! I’m going to get some tonight! Looking forward to the next lessons!
Yay! Excited to have you sew along with us! It’s going to be fun!
I have two bins of shirts ready…they’ve been waiting ten years…time to buy some interfacing I guess?
Go get some interfacing, and make it with me!
A t-shirt quilt? Awesome. I wouldn’t have thought to make something like that. And with a usually massive t-shirt collection is guys’ closets this may be a better use than dropping them off somewhere. Reduce, requilt, recycle?
haha! love it: Reduce, requilt, recycle!
No, I am not a quilter but have always thought I would learn some day. I look forward to the series 🙂
I’m not a quilter either… get out those scissors and let’s learn to make a quilt together!