T-shirt Quilt, COMPLETE!

 
This is the finished T-shirt quilt!  I finished it the first weekend in October, I think but haven't had time to blog about it.  I am very pleased with it, and my client was thrilled as well.  That is always a plus ;)

 I used a little "real" quilting in the borders, and since it was for a girl, got a little girlie with the backing.  If you zoom in, you will see that I also used the pockets from some of the t-shirts just for fun.

This is my personal favorite!  I had so much fun deciding how to quilt each square, but this one was just obvious what to do.

From this far away shot, you can kind of tell that I was going for a graduation of color from light to dark starting in the top left corner and ending bottom right.  I just thought it was a little more interesting since there were so many white shirts and not too many with a lot of color.

I totally forgot to take pics of the quilting stage!  I prefer to do all my quilting by hand because I just love to do it.  If you watch my blog awhile, I will post pics of the quilting stage in the one I am working on now.  I should be quilting by the end of next week (if I am going to finish by Christmas like I have committed to do).  I will also be posting pics of machine quilting.  It can be done on a regular machine and it's a lot faster than hand quilting but it is not for the faint of heart. 

 TO SEE THE QUILT FROM PHASE 1, KEEP READING:
This is my documentation (such as it is) of my first T-shirt quilt.  I have made lots of quilts over the years, but none like this one.  There are a few extra steps when you are using jersey knit on a quilt. 

The first thing I did was cut up the t-shirts.  No, actually, I drew out my design first.  That's probably important.

THEN, I cut up the t-shirts.  I did not waste any part of the shirts, except maybe some small scraps.  Even those I have saved and will probably use later, for something.  The main design on the shirts will be the quilt blocks.  Any pocket design or smaller design will be used as the border just inside the quilt binding.  I plan to join them all together in one long strip and then cut them to size needed.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  My mind just starts racing when I plan stuff like this.

After I cut up the shirts, I basted them to some cotton muslin for stability.  So you don't end up with a stretched out and oddly shaped quilt that you'll never be able to quilt a straight line on.  Trust me.

I didn't worry about how out of shape the "squares" seemed to get during basting, because...

after I finished basting all the "squares" to the muslin, I trimmed each one to identical size.  In this case, mine are not perfectly square, but all are exactly 16" wide by 15" high.  When quilting, this is the most important step if you want your quilt to be uniform, and you don't want to cuss and remove seams an infinite number of times trying to get all your corners matched up.  I'm just sayin'.  I've heard that some quilters cuss, and say things like "darn it"...when they aren't careful with their cutting.  My DW doesn't like it when I say "crap".  But I have always told him that sometimes there is just no other word that fits.  I would never use that word while quilting.  It is not a quilting word...even when the seams don't match.

quilt laid out after sewing "blocks" together

So, if you look at the diagram I drew of the intended quilt...this looks nothing like it.  I think that is one of my favorite things about creating stuff.  What you originally plan to do usually morphs into something completely different.  I love this quilt.  I can't wait to get into the quilting part. 

backing down 1st, wrong side up; batting next; quilt top face up

 I will leave the edges raw just like this while I quilt.  I start at the center of the quilt and move out, smoothing all layers as I go.  When all the quilting is done, I will trim extra batting away and use excess backing for the binding.  I'll show those steps as I get to them.