DIY Disney T-shirt Quilt | Phase 5: Finishing

I am so excited to present my completed Disney T-Shirt Quilt! It was a long time in the making and a very big undertaking, but alas, I have persisted and completed this project!

I backed this with an old twin size duvet cover that the teenage had decided was too complicated to use. I also found this fun black and white polka dot fabric in my stash that was given to me a while back. I used it to make my own bias tape for binding.

So by the end of this project, the only cost that went into it was the bolt of iron-on Pelon I used to back the t-shirts. I'd say that's a bargain! Not only did it give new life to t-shirts we had outgrown, but also now is the coveted blanket for movie night!

I could not be happier with this quilt. It embodies all the qualities of love for a great DIY: reused items made into something useful and lovely. It is not going to win any awards for the construction, but it is definitely a family treasure, and that is better than any perfectly constructed quilt I could buy.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney T-shirt Quilt | Phase 4: Putting It All Together

So it feels like I started this project 100 years ago, collecting old t-shirts, ironing on stabilizer, cutting out squares of fabric.  It was taking so long I had resigned myself to never really having a quilt. And then, all of a sudden, I had all the squares I needed! Just like that. And in the course of one day (a very long, dedicated day) I had not only completed the top the quilt, but also completed the "sandwich" (the top, the batting and the backing,) and the quilting on top of it. It was an amazing day.

Quilting is a lot like painting a room. So much time is spent prepping the space that when the paint finally goes on the walls it feels incredibly satisfying. Same with sandwich day. It all starts coming together and you can see the real progress you've been making all along. Granted, painting a room usually only takes a day or two (not a year and a half!), but the principle's the same.

I began the assembly part of the quilt project by laying out all the squares on the floor to get an idea of the layout I preferred. I started with the squares I liked the most in the center of the quilt and went around them until I was finished, trying not to put two of the same color shirts right next to one another. I tried not to worry too much if three Mickey's were next to one another. That nonsense can drive me crazy! I made sure to take a photo incase my kids decided to mess with it. Of course they did! I was glad I had that photo!

After I was happy with the layout, I sewed the squares together in horizontal strips, noting each row as I went. This made sewing them all together easy. Once I had each horizontal row, I sewed them all together in order to create the completed top.

And here is just a sneak peek of the top before it was sandwiched and quilted together! Once I have the binding made and attached I will reveal the finished product. But this was a very productive and satisfying step toward a new family quilt!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney T-shirt Quilt | Phase 3: Using Smaller T-shirts

As I mentioned in my first post about this t-shirt quilt, I have t-shirts of varying sizes. Some are as small as 6 months onesies, others are 3T. I have some sentimental attachment to many of these and I wanted to include them in the quilt - a way of keeping them and making them useful again. But I was clearly not going to get an 11"x11" square out of them. So I decided to appliqué them onto larger squares.

This is the process I used:

As I was cutting the adult sized t-shirts, I laid them flat and cut through both the fronts and the backs of the shirts. This way, I had the printed square from the front, and a blank square from the back.

I then took the blank square, ironed on the fusible interfacing (Pellon) to stabilize it. (I did not use the Pellon on the smaller square as it felt it wasn't necessary.)

Then, I cut out the printed design from the child sized t-shirt using an 8"x8" square. Again, I made a pattern from scrapbooking paper to make it easy to cut.

Once the smaller square was cut, I centered it on the larger square and used Stitchery Witchery to bond the smaller one to the larger one. If you've never used Stitchery Witchery, it's very simple. It will bond two fabrics together by just ironing it on, the perfect thing to hold the small square on the larger one in order to appliqué it.

After the smaller square was securely adhered to the larger one, I simply used the zigzag stitch on my machine, and stitched around all four sides of the small square. And since I had plenty of scrap material from the left-over t-shirt parts, I was able to test the zigzag settings to get them just the way I wanted them prior to sewing on the first square.

I almost have all my squares completed! The next installment should be the sewing of the quilt top! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

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!

DIY Disney T-shirt Quilt | Phase 1: Gathering Materials

It's official. I have begun work on my very first t-shirt quilt! This is something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. And what better way for us to do it than with our Disney shirts that we've been saving? In fact, I was amazed by how many shirts this quilt was going to need! I used several resources on-line to get started on this project, but finally settled on Totally Stitchin's tutorial. At least this gave me a good place to start with measurements.

I decided to make a twin size quilt. We generally use our quilts more as a throw while we are on the sofa watching movies, and less as a bed cover. To that end, I wanted this quilt to be easily accessible and not too big. I also realized that my t-shirts would not go nearly as far as I thought they would! Another good reason to stick with a twin-sized quilt. According to my measurements, I was going to need a LOT of shirts!

Since math is in no way my strong suit, I wanted my measurements to be even, meaning no half shirt squares to deal with for the quilt. For my twin, I decided to use 11" x 11" squares that would sew up to 10" x 10" squares. A twin quilt is 60" x 90". This way it was easy to see I would need 6 squares across and 9 down, for a whopping total of 54 shirts! This is actually more that I had on hand - shocking, by the way. So I gathered up the family and went to Goodwill. Did you know that the first Saturday of every month they have a 50% off the entire store sale? Neither did I, until we stumbled upon it. Great for the pocket book, not so great for the kiddos waiting for Mama to sort through all the shirts and then wait in line. Next time I will leave the kids with Mr. Photos From The Parks!

And to make things just a little more complicated, I realized that all my shirts were different sizes! So I needed to find a way to make them all work together in a way that would be pleasing to me. I didn't want to put something together only to think every time I got it out, "that looks so odd." Been there, done that! To address this problem I settled on appliqué. The baby and toddler sized shirts would need to be appliquéd to larger squares that fit the pattern.

The solution was easy, since most of my adult-sized T-shirts didn't have printing on the backs. I would use the backs of those T-shirst for the 11"x11" base square, and appliqué onto them the baby size shirts. In theory, it totally works! I'll keep you posted on how well it goes in real time!

Now that I have all of my shirts gathered, my next step is to get them all cut and prepped! I'll keep you posted on this project - I'm super excited to get it done! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!