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Thursday, May 29, 2014

DIY Disney T-shirt Quilt | Phase 2: Preparing the Shirt Squares

As my regular readers will know, I am currently working on a t-shirt quilt. This is my first attempt and I thought what better way to share it than while it's in progress?! Last time, we discussed the measurements and gathering up of t-shirts. This time, I wanted to show you how I prepared the t-shirts for the quilt.

If you've ever worked with jersey, you know it can be a little finicky in the machine. You can approach this in a couple of ways. For smaller projects, such as these adorable boxers from upcycled t-shirts, you can starch the heck out of the jersey and it sews up just fine. But for these larger squares of jersey, I wanted something more stable, especially since I want the measurements to stay fairly accurate. I happened to have some pellon fusible interfacing on hand, and used it (and another bolt I purchased from Amazon) to stabilize the t-shirt squares. If you've never used it, it's extremely easy.

To begin, I made a pattern from scrapbook paper of an 11" x 11" square. I placed it on top of the shirts (no pinning) and cut around it with my scissors. I cut out the back and the front at once so I would have the back squares for the smaller shirts, as I mentioned in my Phase 1 post. If you are a quilter and have a rotary cutter, this would be even faster. I don't have a mat for cutting on at the moment, so I just went old school with the scissors.

I also used that same pattern to cut out the interfacing. Once I had all my squares and all my interfacing cut out, I then ironed the interfacing to the t-shirt squares using the interactions included with the interfacing. I like to start in the middle and work out so there's less chance of puckering, stretching, or wrinkling. Jersey has a tendency to want to stretch as you iron it.

Once I have all 54 squares done it will be time to start sewing them together. Next time I'll walk you through using smaller t-shirts and how I made them fit the larger quilt blocks. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

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