Our family had another of our grandchildren graduating this year-Gracen-my sister, Shirley's, granddaughter who has been involved in sports since she was old enough to hit, throw or kick a ball or ride a horse. For Gracen's graduation, Shirley wanted to make her a quilt from her team shirts as she had done with sister, Alysha's, shirts for her graduation and is at college with hers right now.
Alysha's quilt was made a little differently. The t shirt squares for the top of the quilt had been backed with flannel with a layer of quilt batting between. Each square was lightly quilted before sewing the blocks together. For that method squares had to be cut from the t shirts, from the batting and from the flannel. The batting was cut 1" smaller than the t shirt and flannel.
That wasn't so hard but this time around we would be using the method I used for a memory quilt using fleece which takes the place of flannel and batting hince-cutting down on time and $. AND, we had a handy, dandy 15" square just for these quilts-EASY, PEASY AND QUICKER. I used this method for a memory quilt made from my husband's shirts for grandson, Travis, in a former post:
carolynscanvas.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-keepsake-rag-quilt
That lovely, lovely 15" square probably brought the cutting time down by 3/4 and that is a lot when you are cutting as much as we were and is more accurate-it was great. Of course, we used our trusty rotary cutters [how did our great, grandmothers ever get anything done?]
For your quilt you will need: yardages given are for approximate 60"x 60" throw
t shirts for the size quilt you want to make
polar fleece for the back of the quilt [3-4 yards']
contrasting fleece for sashing [2-3 yards]
lightweight fusible interfacing
You can choose other sizes for your squares, of course, but the
15" size was good for most of the motifs on the shirts.
cut 15" square from polar fleece for each t shirt square
cut 14" square fusible interfacing for each t shirt square-center and fuse to back of t shirt squares
cut 3"-4" wide by 15" long strips for sashing [adjust for size quilt you want to make]
To assemble:
layer t shirt square to polar fleece square wrong sides facing with sashing on polar fleece side
sew all three layers together using 1/2" seams
seams will be on the top side of quilt to be cut into fringe for the "rag" look when quilt is completely assembled [be careful not to snip into seams]
included my hand drawn graph to demonstrate order to sew-15" block to 15" sashing, etc. to create rows
sew long sashing to rows.
sew border all around
clip seam allowances to create fringe
And a video tutorial for a little more help if needed:
One of the first t shirt quilts I made is shown in another post @
carolynscanvas.blogspot.com/2011/05/make-quilt-using-uniforms-t-shirts
It was made differently but thought you might like another way to put one together. No matter how you make them, they are well loved and have all those memories from years past.
Thank you for stopping by and God bless you
Carolyn Wainscott
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Please check out my designs for girls, AG dolls and holiday/home decor @
http://www.craftsy.com/user/pattern/store/43851
While you are over there at Craftsy.com check out all the classes available by top notch instructors in every craft/art you might want to try and some are even free.
