Around here, school is still in session and graduation parties have begun.  Back in my old stomping ground…the Midwest…graduations have happened and all ages are out of school.  Why do I bring up graduations?  I am a very proud aunt and got to attend my brother’s oldest HS graduation party!  Katie, we are so proud of you!  (and she has requested a t-shirt quilt!!). So I’m using some of my “old” t-shirts to play with random size and placement technique.  I’ve made the simple block type.  The dance quilt below is one I helped a friend with a couple years ago.

Beth’s Eleve Danse Studio quilt

And here is my random pieced quilt!

T-shirt Quilt ..Debbie Wendt

I love how it turned out.  There are several places where I had partial seams.  I’ll give some tips on that next week.  For this week, I’d like to recommend a great T-shirt quilt book.  “How to Make a Too Cool T-shirt Quilt” by Andrea T. Funk.  This has great steps.  One of the additions that I did, that she does not, is to apply a stabilizer.  I used the cheapest fusible Pellon.

#1- Use a fusible interfacing/stabilizer to help control the stretch of T-shirts.

Andrea recommends you cut every shirt to a size divisible by 4.  Great tip and one I highly recommend!  I cut my own templates from plexiglass I purchased at Lowe’s.  (Actually, I had someone at Lowes make a couple of the larger cuts and did the rest myself…I got better cuts!)

T-shirt Templates (each side is divisible by 4)

#2- Keep cut T-shirt sizes consistent.  Whether you use 4″ increments or another number, it makes random piecing a breeze.  Everything fits!

More T-shirt tips next week!

in quilting,

Debbie