T-shirt quilt for softball player

I just finished another T-shirt quilt for a softball player...

It's funny, I do several of these a year for people (mostly softball players--hmmm, imagine that?) and I end up using the same color for sashing in almost 80% of them.  

Here is my choice of colors:

{Hot Pink}   {Red}   {Royal Blue}   {Bright Yellow}  {Almost Lime Green}

{Pink}  just didn't work for me.  Not enough of it in the quilt?

{Red} might have been okay if it would have been brighter, but that didn't thrill me either.

{Royal Blue} Okay, I admit. My 'go to' color.  It seems to recede into the background without clashing with any of the shirts and allows the T-shirts to come out and shine. 

{Bright Yellow} Got your shades?  Whoa--I'm the first one to admit I love bright, intense colors, but it was trying to take all the glory when it forgets it is all about the T-shirts! Sorry yellow, I really wanted you.

{Almost Lime Green} it was the 'almost' that got me.  It just didn't quite get it with the other lime greens in the quilt. 

So, Royal Blue again makes it's appearance in my T-shirt quilts. It just seems to be the most unassuming choice and allows the shirts to stand out. 

I use a heavy flannel for my sashing and backing. First of all because it is more the weight of the T-shirts and it makes it a nice snuggly quilt.  I use Warm and Natural cotton batting.  I quilt it with a gray thread in a large-ish overall meander.  It's not about the quilting here..it's all about the shirts. 

This young lady had a number of shirts that had designs on the back, including several that had the names of participants. So I just chose a few and added a row on the back. 

I have seen several awesome Tshirt quilts, but this is the most basic one that I teach and also do for hire, as it's the most economical.   I'm working on a tutorial now.  

This is a great shirt...thought I would share it...guess who is a catcher? 

T-shirt quilt

This past week I finished another T-shirt quilt for a customer. She was the most organized person. She had a picture of her daughter wearing every T-shirt in the quilt-and there were 29 of them! She wanted to have each picture with each T-shirt. I spent lots of time putting photos on fabric (I used June Taylor's Colorfast Fabric Sheets) and then onto the quilt. Most of the time, I just use the photo as is. But once in a while, the picture just called for it to be cut apart. (Don't worry--I only cut the fabric photo and leave the real photo intact. ) I like to use a high quality flannel as sashing and as backing and Warm and Natural batting. It made for a very heavy quilt! :) That's okay--they make warm and cozy quilts for the dorm.

One of the shirt had a really neat saying on it.."If you can imagine it, you can acheive it. If you can dream it, you can become it." I cut it apart and put it in the sashing strips and staggered them down the quilt. I try to use as many components and things off the T-shirts as I can. I cut off pocket logos, the sleeves, everything. I'll cut the basic T-shirt square (I use a 12 1/2" square up ruler) and then start adding things on top of the blocks and sometimes going into the sashings. I know some that will measure every T-shirt and graph it out, but I prefer this method and since I teach this class, it's a lot easier for beginning quilters to accomplish.

Another thing that beginner's struggle with is making the sashings line up if there are no cornerstones (little blocks in the sashings between rows). To avoid having your sashings not appear to be in line: Lay your row with the sashing right side down. Lay a ruler on the seam line, extending the ruler through the sashing and mark. When you add your next row of T-shirts, match the T-shirt/sashing seam with the mark on the long sashing and pin.