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Monthly Archives: June 2012

Magical T-Shirts

What do you get when you mix Pinterest and Instagram!?

A hot Collaged-T-Shirt-Quilting mess!

Several months ago, I saw something on Pinterest (an online pin-board for sharing lots of cool stuff) that I felt I just had to make. A quilt made out of old T-Shirts! I figured it was guaranteed to be comfy … and most definitely had to be cheaper than buying all the fabric to make a quilt of the same size!

Plus, I had never made a quilt before – and the thought of doing so was quite intriguing to me!

Or – maybe it was the thought of emptying Aaron’s T-Shirt drawer that intrigued me the most!

You see, Aaron’s T-Shirt drawer has magical powers. If you take one shirt out … two more grow in its place! It really is quite amazing. And seeing how his drawer has not changed in size over the years to accomdate for such growth, it is always stuffed to the brim – or, as it is on most days, overflowing with T-Shirts!

So, I set out to fix this problem.

Only to have Aaron’s T-Shirt drawer laugh in my face!

I told Aaron I needed 20 shirts. I was able to get my hands on 10. After figuring I’d just cut up some fabric to fill the other 10 spots I needed to fill, Aaron proposed we go to Goodwill and pick up some cool shirts to fill said spots. I thought that was a great idea – until I realized there were just as many T-Shirts in the buggy that were for him to wear than there were for me to put in the quilt!

And we were back to square one.

Both of us happy as clams – Aaron with his new (old) shirts and me with the early makings of an awesome quilt! – but still back to square one.

At any rate, after lots of cutting and sewing – and a few dedicated weekends later – the quilt is now finished. And I think it turned out fantastic! Especially for my first ever attempt at making a patch quilt! And just in case I decide to make another one way off in the future, I figured I should document (at least the Reader’s Digest version) of what steps to take:

Steps 1 & 2: Carefully select what shirts you would like to use and then cut them up with a 12.5″ x 12.5″ quilting square ruler.

Steps 3, 4 & 5: Lay T-Shirts out in the order you would like them to be in the quilt, sew the 3.5″ sashing and cornerstones to each piece, and then sew all T-Shirt/Sashing/Cornerstone pieces together so that they resemble the top of a quilt.

Steps 6, 7 & 8: Draw quilting lines with chalk (it would be good to have two different colors on hand – for light shirts and dark shirts), pin together the quilt top, batting and backing with safety pins, and then quilt the quilt.

Steps 9, 10, 11 & 12: Take out all the pins you just put in, admire the beautiful quilting lines, sew the border to the quilt, and cut off all the excess batting and backing.

Step 13, 14 & 15: Hand-stitch the border so it looks all pretty, hand-stitch your unique signature – with the year (so that you never have to catch yourself saying, ‘When exactly did I make this!?’), and smile as you Instagram your finished maserpiece.