T-Shirt Quilt

My friend, Yolanda's daugter graduates in a few days.  She's been playing soccer since the beginning of her school career, and Yolanda has saved her shirts throughout the years.  She asked me if I could put these together into a quilt she can take to college.  Absolutely!  I've been wanting to try out this concept for awhile (I've seen all sorts of versions at quilt shows, and through friends).  In fact, I've got a stack of my own shirts from softball, high school events, travel, college shirts, and work shirts. 
She brought me her stack of shirts, and I bought a 9.5x9.5 inch grid to make exact cuts. 

 I centered the grid over the part I wanted to highlight, and used a rotary cutter to pull out my square.  For the most part I pulled out the front with the logo, and the back with the number, but in a few case, I also snagged a sleeve with a fun design, or patches indicating Alyse's successes at the goalie box. 

 I laid them out to make sure no like colors/numbers were touching. 

I bought some light weight fusible fabric from the fabric store (they sell it by the yard) and cut these into squares and ironed the 'rough/sticky' side to the back of the shirt square.  This prevents the shirts from stretching as you sew, and makes it a little less of a flimsy material. 

 You can cut this a little larger, and trim the edges to make sure the entire back is covered, but I just made sure my hem was far enough in to snag all the edges. 

I decided to add a 2.5 inch border to each so I didn't have to try to match the corners exactly, and to make this quilt a little larger so she can snuggle under it while watching TV....I mean, studying, in college.

 I sewed each row together, and ironed (just a side note, don't iron the numbers from the front, iron them from the back or they might pull up). 

 I added one long strip of 2.5 inch fabric to the top of each row. 

 I sewed all the rows together, making sure I matched the lines both horizontally and vertically as much as possible. 

 I then added a row to both sides so it was completely framed. 

She selected some flannel fabric for the back that's really soft to help with the comfort factor. 

I left it with a lady to quilt the soccer ball pattern. 

I made a bag to house the blanket I'll post about tomorrow. 

I'm motivated to get a quilt going for my own shirt collection now, it was much easier than I thought it would be, and it makes me feel less guilt about slicing up those old memories. 

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