Stitch This: T-shirt Quilt

Recycled T-shirt Quilt
(featured on Creative Juice episode 113 - Wardrobe Revival)

It is time to chop up last years t-shirts and stitch up a fun recycled T-shirt. Kids and grown-ups love seeing all their old T's. This project makes a 56" X 56" lap quilt. Adjust the amount of t-shirts and rows to make the quilt larger.

Materials:
13 old t-shirts (if new, pre-wash them)
1 56x56” piece of backing fabric—(fleece works great)
Sewing pins
Sewing machine & thread
Ballpoint sewing machine needle
Hand sewing needle
Yarn to finish the quilt
Large-eyed hand sewing needle for the yarn

Steps:

1. Iron the t-shirts if necessary. Cut each shirt in to a 12x12” square. Make sure you cut through both layers of the shirt. Try to center the image on the t-shirt in the 12X12” square.

2. Lay out your quilt pattern so that you have 5 blocks going across and 5 blocks going down. You can get creative here and play with color and image placement.

3. Working on the first row, pin two t-shirt squares together (right sides together) Use the sewing machine and a ball point needle, sew a half inch seam down the two squares. Continue adding a block until you have a row of 5 t-shirt squares. Repeat this step until you have a total of 5 rows of 5 t-shirt squares each.

4. Pin in place and sew the five rows together, right sides together, with a half inch” seam allowance. This will give you a square of seamed t-shirt squares approximately 56x56”.

5. Place the 56x56” square of seamed t-shirts on the 56x56” square of fleece with the right sides together. Pin in place at the edges. Sew the edges of the t-shirt square to the edge of the fleece square using a 5/8" seam allowance and leaving a small open edge for turning the square right side out.

6. Trim the corners and seams to eliminate any excess bulk. Turn the quilt right side out. Hand-stitch the opening closed to create a finished edge.

7. Tie off the quilt: Cut 16 lengths of yarn, 6” each. Thread one 6” length of yarn through the large-eyed yarn needle. Place the quilt, t-shirt side up and insert the needle where four t-shirt square corners meet. Pull the needle through to the back-side of the quilt, and re-insert the needle close to the first needle hole, threading the yarn back to the t-shirt side of the quilt. Tie the two yarn ends together, with the knot tied close to the fabric. Trim the yarn ends to a desired length. Repeat until all corners are tied off.