T-Shirt Quilt for Sarah

Last fall, my friend Danielle asked if I knew how to make a t-shirt quilt, and if I might be able to make one for her daughter as a high school graduation gift.  I love when quilt deadlines are very far away -- I had close to 8 months so how could I say no?

 

This quilt is pretty big -- 72" x 90". My husband had to stand on a ladder in order for me to get the picture. I decided not to crop him out :-).

 

Danielle's daughter is an athlete, she plays soccer, basketball and runs (among other things).  Danielle mailed me a box of t-shirts that she had "borrowed" from Sarah's drawers without her knowing.  As you can probably guess, her school colors are black and red.

 

 

Each square finished at 15" and I used a light-weight fusible interfacing on the back.  The blocks were sashed in black with red cornerstones.  (There are prints on the black & red, but they don't show in these photos.)

 

 

I quilted this with straight lines (stitch in the ditch) along both sides of each sashing strip (vertically and horizontally) then added some meandering squiggles within each block, being careful not to stitch over any of the printing on the shirt.  The thread color on the block matches the background color of the shirt.  I really wanted the shirts - not the stitching - to be prominent.

 

All of the shirts were cotton except one.  The red shirt with the white "2" on it was a tech shirt, but it worked out just fine and I didn't have to do anything differently on that block.

The back is black and the binding is red.  I also made a quilt tag with red stitching on white fabric.  I asked Danielle to write a "note" to Sarah in her own handwriting, then I stitched exactly that, making the quilt tag look like a hand written note from Mom & Dad.  Of course I don't have a picture, but this is the method I used.  The only differences from my original post are that the words were hand written (vs printed on a computer) and I used tissue paper in place of regular paper. 

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~