A Sorority T-shirt Quilt

Pile of shirts

     Another T-shirt quilt.  This one was all her daughter's shirts from her sorority functions.  Most of them were t-shirts but a few were tank tops or halter tops.

Adding on fabric to be able to cut a square

     Those sleepless tops did present a bit of a challenge because they were not wide enough at the top to cut a square.  What I did was to cut the arm area at an angle and then cut pieces from the back of the shirt and sewed them on with a 1/4" seam allowance.

Front enlarged with extra from the back

       I then pressed the seams open and then fused the stabilizer to the back.  I prepped all the shirts, cut the stabilizer and got ready for pressing.

Prepped shirts and cut stabilizer

    I fused the stabilizer to the back of the prepped shirts and then cut all my squares.

Ready for cutting

     I used my 12-1/2" square ruler and my turn table cutting mat.  This made it very easy to center the design, cut two sides, rotate the mat and cut the last two sides.  No repositioning of the ruler for the four cuts.

Tools used

     After cutting all 30 shirts, I arranged them to spread around the different colors and themes.  I sewed them together with 1/4" seam allowance.

Backing

     I then pieced the fleece backing and spread it out on the floor.  I placed the completed top on the fleece with right sides together.  Pinned all around, trimmed to size and then stitched all around.  I left an opening for turning and then stitched around the perimeter.

Top on the backing

     For the quilting, the client opted to just tack in the corners.  I stitched in the ditch for a few stitches out from the intersections of the shirts.  It made for little crosses on the back of the quilt.