T-shirt quilt

This is a project that I put off for 2 years.  I had made my daughter a quilt when she graduated high school so, of course, my son expected to have his very own quilt when he graduated. To make up for the long wait, I made it a king size and really made it very personal by adding some new band t-shirts that I knew he would love.  A lot of family and friends helped find shirts I didn't have, which makes the quilt even more special.  Thank you Daryl, Trista, Sonja, Jon, Sheri, Bill, and Joe.  I couldn't have finished this without you!  I was able to present it to him at Christmas.

I backed each t-shirt front with fusible, feather weight interfacing and cut 14" squares.  The middle row of the quilt is 14" x 22" squares.  I had some shirts I just couldn't cut into 14 inches.  Some of the squares were pieced together when I wanted to include the front and back or had little pieces of shirts to include.  Here's an example:

I made more work for myself by sewing 1/2" seams and then cutting the seams allowances down to 1/4" to reduce bulk, but I found it helped keep the squares from sliding around on my ancient sewing machine.  The squares were window paned with 2" strips of grey cotton fabric.

I machine quilted by stitching in the ditch around each square.  Here, you can see some of the shirts.  My favorites are the ones he had painted or drew on himself.  Some of the shirts I bought as fillers (like the Chuckie Cheese shirt).  I wish I would have saved more t-shirts from his childhood, but you make do.  All of the squares are special in some way.  I loved making it!




My son, Randy with his t-shirt quilt

One over due project, DONE (with love),