Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Custom T-Shirt Quilt - WIP Wednesday

Hello there and happy Wednesday!  I love Wednesdays, because I get to share what I'm currently working on without feeling like it has to be all finished and perfect yet.

Over the last week, I've had the pleasure to start working on another custom T-shirt quilt.  This one is especially fun, because it's using all child-sized shirts...and lots of them!  I have 51 designs going into this one to make a generous twin-sized quilt.

As always, I start my T-shirt/memory quilts on paper.  I measure out the designs and the width of each shirt to give me the range of size I can use for each design.  Then I break out the graph paper and start figuring out the math....it's like playing a game of tetris.  I usually erase lots, and often it takes a couple days before I can make it "click".  I love this part, even though it's probably the hardest part.


Once that's done, I only cut and sew one column or row at a time, marking them off on both of my sheets as I go.  It may seem redundant, and time-consuming, but if I don't do it like that...I'm bound to either mix something up, or lose my place.


It seems like I always have at least one column that needs to be all the same width.  This quilt will have 2, but here's the first one completed.


Then here's where I left off yesterday...2 Columns down!


So, that's what I'm working on right now!  I'd love to hear if you're working on anything or if you start your T-shirt quilts with a different method.

Have a great day!













I'm linking up today with Let's Bee Social, WOW, and Wednesday Wait Loss!

3 comments:

  1. I have made one tshirt quilt. I kind of followed a pattern, but the tshirts, of course, were many different sizes. So I cut them out larger and then I would kind of "shave down" to fit a particular block in the pattern. I did have a similar graph that I worked off of. It seemed like I kept moving certain ones around. I finally just "winged it"! Your blocks look nice and centered. I'm sure this will turn out wonderful!

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    1. Thanks, Danette! There's definitely a learning process to it all. The first couple I did...I definitely winged and they were so stressful! This keeps me sane. ;) Thanks so much for stopping by today!

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  2. Thanks for sharing your process! I've never made a tshirt quilt but I'm sure one is in my future. I'll remember your technique and be sure to "Tetris" it before I cut. Thanks for sharing on Wednesday Wait Loss.

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