Wednesday, September 09, 2009

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.

5 comments:

  1. It's great to see fresh, creative ideas that have never been done before.

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    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:33 PM

    make a quilt out of vaction shirts

    ReplyDelete
  3. here is my version :) I like asymmetry http://spencersabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/photo-tour.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. My daughter has saved her old Hard Rock Ts for me to just just this kind of project with! Thanks for the instructions!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. How fun! That will a really cute one!

    ReplyDelete

I love comments and questions. Sometimes it takes me a few days to reply. Have a wonderful day!

Cathie

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