THE T-shirt Quilt

From Quilts I Make

Have you ever made a t-shirt quilt?  I had not, until now.  My niece is graduating from high school this week ( did you catch that, this week! ) and LAST year, well last fall, my SIL sent me all of my nieces shirts that she had been collecting - from when she was a baby till now.

I had not done a quilt like this so I asked for help from friends, browsed the net and decided that I would back each shirt with a light fusible interfacing.  This worked really well!  My nieces favorite colors are blue and purple and I had the border fabric already so I dug thru my stash to see what matches.  I wanted fabrics that read mostly as solids so that the shirts would stand out.  I didn't have what I wanted so I did have to buy a couple of solids.  But everything else was from my stash!  Awesome.

I put borders around each block, started sashing them, didn't like it, took it apart and stayed with what you see now.  It was an interesting challenge getting everything to line up.  My friend tirane93 quilted it for me, just a very loose meander, staying out of the middle of the shirts where the printing is ( I think it would mess up the needle and tension ).  I put the border on, hand sewed it, then I washed it.  With a color catcher, just in case.  That would be just awful if those colors ran at all!

There were a couple of badges that I wanted to add at the end, and couple of very small blocks/words that I cut out of a couple of t-shirts.  I put them on after the quilting,, and I really like it!  I especially like her high school letter, down at the bottom,, it's next to a shirt from the school.  I'm good!

The back had to be pieced ( had that fabric in my stash - yes! ) and there were a couple of things that my SIL sent that I just couldn't get on the front.  Placement of these two didn't work out right when the backing was put on the LA machine,  but they are there and that is all that matters! ...  I printed labels today and got them sewn on - the larger one has a saying that her Dad sent to me as well as her graduation picture, then the smaller one is my quilting label.

From Quilts I Make

Did ya'll catch that she sent me the box of shirts last year?  And my niece graduates this week?  And this quilt is laying on my living room floor?  Geez, talk about procrastination!  But it is ready to go, and I'll take it to the shipping place tomorrow ( I don't have the right size box ) and with luck the delivery man will hand it off later this week. 

It's done.
Thank goodness its done.
I'm happy with how it came out.

I hope they like it.