T-Shirt Quilt

Our daughter, Pamela, mentioned in 2005 that she would like to get her sorority T-shirts made into a quilt. She had seen one belonging to a friend. She considered having one made professionally, but they were a bit pricey. I had never made a quilt, but how hard could it be? And our old Singer was just occupying space in the house, so why not put it to good use? After my retirement in late 2005, I had time to take on the quilt. We started the project in April, 2006.

Pamela designed the quilt, picking the T-shirts to “sacrifice”, determining the basic layout, and selecting the sash, binding and backing materials. In the meantime, I experimented with our sewing machine to see if it would do a quilting stitch, and if the throat was large enough. I soon discovered that the coarsest stitch length that our Singer Touch-N-Sew could do was 8 stitches per inch, which was not coarse enough for a quilting stitch. I then decided to try hand-feeding, also known as free-motion quilting. I experimented with various needle plates, foot pressures and thread tension and found a combination of settings that yielded an acceptable stitch. Hand-feeding also had an unexpected benefit. By feeding by hand, I was able to randomly vary the stitch length to give a look of hand-quilting

The other key question was whether the machine throat was big enough. Since quilting stitches had to be made all across the quilt, including in the center, half the finished quilt had to fit in the throat. This is not usually a problem with normal sewing projects, but quilting is somewhat unique in this requirement. A long-arm machine would have been perfect, but our Singer wasn’t one. Rolling up some sample material and batting verified that half the quilt would just barely fit in the throat. So with the quilting stitch and throat size questions answered, I was reasonably confident that I could make the quilt on the sewing machine, albeit with a question of what surprising obstacles awaited.

Pamela did the initial design layout on her dining room floor. She decided on 4 columns of panels, or blocks. Each column would be the same width, but each block would be a different height, depending on the size of its graphic pattern. She used complete T-shirts for the layout and folded the excess parts of the shirts back to approximate the finished block size. She experimented with block positioning to achieve 4 columns of roughly equal total height and to mix colors in a pleasing array. The following picture shows the initial layout, which I was able to retain through to the finished quilt.

Initial layout

So after several weeks of work and blazing new trails (for me at least), we produced a finished quilt.

Approving smile

How it was made

After the initial layout, the next step was to do a rough cut of the T-shirts, eliminating the sleeves, collars and other parts that would not be needed in the quilt. Eliminating the excess made a more precise layout possible. The spacing between the blocks in the following picture approximated the spacing to be allowed for the sash.

Detailed layout

T-shirt material is probably the last material a sane person would choose to use in a sewing project, because it is so stretchy. To solve that problem and give the material some body, I purchased what is called “fusible interfacing”. It is a light material with good rigidity in both dimensions and with a thin, heat-fusible coating on one side. The printed paper within the material roll contained fusing instructions.

Interfacing material

One of the design challenges with this project was determining the height of each block so that all four columns were the same overall height. It was necessarily a trial and error process, so I decided to put the data in a spreadsheet and manipulate it there. After all, manipulating data is what spreadsheets do best. The following figure shows the spreadsheet for the first quilt column. For each quilt column, there are spreadsheet columns for row number, shirt (block) description, and nominal, minimum and maximum block heights. To enter the data, I first measured and entered the minimum and maximum block heights for each block. The minimum height was limited by the height of the T-shirt graphic. I also allowed for top and bottom margins above and below the graphics in this measurement to yield a pleasing design. The maximum height was limited by either the shirt’s neck position or the bottom hem, keeping the graphic centered vertically on the block. Once this data was entered, it was necessary to approximate the overall height of the quilt. I determined this to be around 73 inches, based on a previous measurement of the overall vertical height on the “Detailed layout”. The nominal height spreadsheet column was where I entered trial heights for each block. I then created a sum field called “Total vertical”. This calculated the sum of all the entries in the “Nom.” column. I then adjusted each nominal value until the “Total vertical” value for each column equaled exactly 73 inches, and then repeated this process for each of the other three quilt columns. Also note that at the bottom of the “Nom.” column, there are sash and border dimensions, and these are included in the “Total vertical” calculation. This was helpful because the number of sashes, or divisions between blocks, varied by column. 

At the bottom of the spreadsheet is an area for the calculation of the overall quilt width. The calculation included 4 quilt columns at 15 inches each and 3 vertical sashes and 2 borders, for an overall width of 68.5 inches.


Layout spreadsheet

Column 1
Row	Shirt	Nom.	Min.	Max.
1	Tridelt (script)	12	11	12
2	TRI DELTA Bid Day	6.5	6	7.75
3	Tri-Delt PARENTS WEEKEND	9.75	9	11.5
4	Delta-Delta-Delta 2002	13.5	13	16
5	Delta Delta Delta (white b.)	5.25	5.25	5.25
6	BID DAY 1999	6.5	5	7
7	VICTORY	6.5	5	7
		60	54.25	66.5
	Sash	9	9	9
	Borders	4	4	4
	Total vertical	73	67.25	79.5
Horizontal
	Panels (4 columns x 15 inches)	60
	Sash	4.5
	Borders	4
	Total horizontal	68.5

I also used a separate spreadsheet to calculate material requirements. Since fabric is supplied in various bolt widths, I added spreadsheet cells to calculate the material requirements for all the common bolt widths. Material requirements included a 20% margin for cutting waste.

Once the panel dimensions were known, the T-shirt panels were cut to remove most of the unneeded material. It was necessary to do this intermediate rough cut to have blocks onto which the interfacing could be fused.

Rough-cut blocks

The interfacing was fused to the backs of the T-shirt panels with a hot iron. At this step, it was also necessary to carefully smooth out the knit material so that straight lines on the graphics were straight, BEFORE ironing on the interfacing. The interfacing had to be fused with the iron applied to the interfacing, but in order to assure that the graphics were straight, I first applied heat through the T-shirt material with the graphics visible.

Applying interfacing

Once the T-shirt material was firmly attached to the interfacing, I could then turn the assembly over and complete the fusing process as per instructions.

Block with interfacing ironed on

Once the stabilizing interfacing was applied the panels could be cut to their final dimensions. Providing this dimensional stability to the panels was the interfacing’s most important function.

All blocks with interfacing applied

One of the most stressful parts of making the quilt was measuring and cutting the panels to final dimensions. This was because one bad cut could have ruined the whole project. I only had one of each T-shirt, and these were all one-off T-shirts for special events during our daughter’s college days. They were truly irreplaceable. So in addition to the care given the sizing spreadsheet, I felt it prudent to create a cutting template to minimize the chance for measuring and cutting errors. I used heavy poster board to create the measuring/cutting template. The template had three parts: 1) a frame which established the block extents and 2) moveable top and bottom marking guides. The frame established the fixed block width, since it was the same for all blocks. The frame was labeled with horizontal centering scales along the top and bottom edges. It was labeled with vertical measuring scales along the side edges. So with the frame centered over the graphic, each marking guide was placed on the appropriate vertical dimension line. After then double-checking the marking guides settings against the spreadsheet, an Ultrafine Point Sharpie was used to mark all four edges on the block. As a final check before cutting, the marked vertical block height was measured against the spreadsheet. (Measure twice – cut once.)

Block sizing/marking template

First block cut to final size

Following is a picture of my block-cutting workstation. With the spreadsheet computer station, ironing station, block cutting station and sewing station, this project was spread over a large part of the house. At one point during its construction, I had to take a prednisone pack for some now-thankfully-forgotten infection. Steroids affect people in different ways, but for me I can plan on not sleeping for a couple of nights straight after the first dose. It also gives me tons of energy. So I literally did a couple of all-nighters on the quilt project. Fortunately for my wife, none of my workstations were in our master bedroom!

Block cutting work area

I celebrated when the entire tedious T-shirt cutting was completed. Sorry, there are no celebration photos.

All blocks cut to final size

Pamela incorporated some smaller graphics into a nice mosaic. These six sub-blocks had to be pre-assembled into a standard-width block.

Mosaic block

The sash and border material Pamela selected was a denim with medium blue on one side and a lighter blue on the other. Here I’m testing which side to use. I sent photos of both to the designer, and she chose to use the lighter side for the sashes and borders and the darker side for the binding. I think the contrasting colors was a nice design detail.

Testing block colors against sash material

Our normal sewing area is confined to a small, built-in desk, which would never work for quilt-making. So I commandeered our living room as a temporary sewing station. I also needed lots of work-table area, so I drafted into duty a couple of interior doors that I had previously salvaged for use as temporary table tops in my shop. I bolted them together, covered them with clear plastic sheeting, and set them on saw horses. This worked great for the sewing station. Coincidentally, one of the doors had been cut down at some point in its existence, and I used that feature as an in-feed area for the table. The sewing table was also used as a cutting station for the sash, border and backing material, and as a general assembly station.

Improvised cutting/sewing/quilting station

Our old Singer still sews well after all these years.

Our 37-year-old Singer Touch-N-Sew

To measure and cut the sash material, I made another template. But this one was done to increase productivity in addition to minimizing cutting mistakes. It located the cutting lines as well as the seam lines.

Sash template

An eight-foot long, aluminum angle was used as a marking guide. Clamps, wood strips and two sand-filled plastic bottles kept the guide in place. Yeah, I know, not your typical sewing tools. You can’t buy these at the fabric/sewing store. And I imagine any readers who are experienced quilt makers are either laughing or wincing now.

Sash strip layout

Presbyopia is the medical term for the condition which necessitates keeping reading glasses close at hand.

Cutting sash strips

Sewing the blocks together with the borders and sashes presented no particular problems. Even though the completed top gave the impression of much progress, most of the work was still to come.

Completed top

At this point, another big decision had to be made. That was what kind of pattern to use for the quilting. “Quilting” is the term for sewing the top to the backing with padding, called batting, sandwiched between. Quilting may date back as early as ancient Egypt. Can’t you just picture Cleopatra using her Singer with a donkey walking on a treadmill to turn the mechanism? The earliest quilt known to still exist was made around 1360.¹

Dry runs are always a good thing, so I decided to try some small quilting samples. The first sample employed an intersecting quarter-circle quilting pattern. While an esthetically-pleasing pattern, it was going to be hard to do by machine with a limited throat area.

First test sample

The second sample used a square pattern, oriented at 45 degrees to the quilt edges. While orienting it at 45 degrees would increase the distance from the center stitching to the farthest quilt extent, which would be the corners, it was still doable with the Singer throat. This is the pattern that we settled on.

Second test sample

Once the quilting pattern was selected, it was time to cut the solid backing and batting. They were then pinned together with the top before beginning the quilting.

Top, batting and backing pinned together

Managing the large amount of material during quilting was a challenge.

Quilting in progress

A common sewing machine accessory is a seam guide which screws to the machine table to the right of the needle. But with quilting, because there is generally lots of material on both sides of the needle, it is not possible to use a guide. So I employed painters’ masking tape to guide the stitches. One of the pitfalls of this was accidentally allowing the needle to get too close to the tape guide and penetrate it. Bad! The results were sticky adhesive coating the needle and the need to stop, cut the thread, and remove and clean the needle.

Quilting detail

After allowing the needle to drift into the tape one too many times, I began applying the tape to register with the edge of the foot rather than the needle. This permanently solved the sticky needle problem.

Following guide tape

Even with the in-feed area of the improvised sewing table, it was not nearly long enough. Feeding the material through the machine involved rolling up much of the quilt once the guide tape was applied.

Feeding lots of material through machine throat

The following picture was taken after half the quilting stitches had been completed.

First pass of quilting completed

The following picture shows the effect achieved by hand-feeding the material through the machine. Note the varying stitch length, which I think gave somewhat of a hand-quilted look to the quilt, even though the very straight lines of the stitches are a dead give-away.

Quilt stitching detail

Two football field lengths of thread later, all the quilting was finally done. One minor problem I encountered was material creep. The differential between foot drag on the quilt top and needle plate drag on the quilt bottom caused skewing of the top relative to the backing, in spite of having the quilt pinned together every few inches. The skew caused gathers in the back, which usually weren’t discovered until the stitch run had been completed. I wound up having to remove parts of several stitch runs and redo them. In order to have a durable quilt, I pulled the top thread end to the bottom and tied both threads together at the ends of all broken runs.

All quilting stitches completed

At this point the end was in sight. All that remained was to apply binding to the edge of the quilt on all sides to cover the raw edges.

Ready for binding

Here I’m machine-stitching the binding to the top of the quilt. After attaching the binding to the top, it was then wrapped around the edges to lap over the backing. To avoid an exposed stitch in the binding, I rolled and hemmed the back edge of the binding by hand.

Final assembly step – attaching binding

The final step before delivery was to machine-wash the quilt. It held together just fine, and the wash cycle softened it to perfection. The big smiles made it all worthwhile!

Cozy daughter

References:


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quilting