In response to a question -this is how I made my t-shirt quilt.

l. I cut out the front and backs of the t-shsirts I wanted to use leaving as much extra blank space around each motif as possible (since I didn’t know the final finished size of each.)

2.I measured the size of each motif and wrote it down and pinned it to each one. This proved to be important. I was discovering the many varied sizes I had – not the simple 12 x 12 I’d seen in pictures.

3. I stabilized each piece with a thin fusible interfacing being generous with size.

4. I started laying them out on my floor (design wall) and soon found out that the narrower ones went together and the wider ones went together and there was no way I could match them horizontally as well. That’s when I decided to skip the horizontal strips and just use a vertical one. I labeled the placement of each one,.

5. I sewed them together into vertical rows centering the motifs on each other . Then I trimed the excess off the side edges. But I left the excess on the tops and bottoms until I was sure that I had three matching rows (length). Then I trimmed the excess off the tops and bottoms of each piece.

6. I used polar fleece – a four inch piece for the vertical strip and six inch pieces for the border. I think the polar fleece works really with the t-shirt knits – it has the same kind of softness and flexibility.

7. I used polar fleece as the backing – there is no quilt batting (the fleece is the batting.) Then I pin basted it, stitched around all the major motifs, each block, down each vertical strip edge and around the border edges.

8. Now I have to find a place in the house where I’ll allow my husband to use it. I told him it would make a great conversation piece in his nursing home some day.