How to make a super simple T-shirt Quilt

I've had a box of t-shirts sitting in my cupboard for a few years now, saved with the idea of one day making a t-shirt quilt with them.

Well, this week, I decided that it was time to just do it! 

I read plenty of blog posts from other people who had made t-shirt quilts, and listened to various pieces of advice, then launched into trying it out for myself.

I decided to go the simplest way possible. I only used the t-shirts and a large piece of knit fabric I had in my stash for the backing. I chose not to add any 'extras' like batting, interfacing or sashing.

I used the current needle in my sewing machine - which I found by checking after I made the quilt was a denim needle!

And I cut the t-shirts with just regular dressmaking scissors and sized the pieces by eyeballing them, no measurements.

The quilt turned out the size of the t-shirt pieces I had, finished - roughly 1 m  x 1 m 60 cm (39 x 63").

So here is how to make your very own super simple t-shirt quilt in  10 steps.

There are no measurements in this tutorial. The size of your quilt will depend on the number of t-shirts you have, and the size you cut them to with the logos and designs you have!

I made my first ever video tutorial for this t-shirt quilt. You can watch this, or scroll down for the photo tutorial.

1. Collect your t-shirts

2. Cut the logos/ designs out from the front of the t-shirts, leaving as much space around them as you can. 

Lay them out flat. Do this often to see what you have and get an idea of your layout, size and order.

3. Now take each piece in turn and trim to make the edges straight and the corners square.

Note - I had a piece with a rounded top as it was from a singlet.

You can still use pieces like this - I simply laid this on top of the piece above it and ran a tight zig zag stitch around the edge to hold it in place.

4. Lay your pieces out again, this time matching them up by width. Try to make each row using pieces of a similar width.  You can do this either down or across. I went down here.

5. Shuffle and move your pieces around until you're happy with where they are. I moved mine lots, added and took away pieces until I was happy with the layout and it looked even.

Then trim each row of pieces to make them all the same width.

You can see in this picture I have 4 rows (going downwards) each row being the same width.

6. Now pin then stitch the pieces in each row together one at a time, right sides together.

Once you have all of your rows finished, then you join these rows to each other one by one. Simply pin and stitch.

When stitching with t-shirt fabric, use lots of pins and don't push or pull the fabric through the machine. Hold your work loosely and let the machine feed it through.

7. Now lay your backing fabric flat on the ground face up. Smooth out any wrinkles. 

 Then lay your t-shirt quilt top face down on top of the backing and smooth out any wrinkles.

8. Put plenty of pins around all four edges - but leave a gap of about 30 cm (1') to turn the quilt right sides out.

Roughly trim the edges of the backing and stitch around your quilt edges, remembering to leave that gap!

9.  Turn your quilt right sides out through the gap, then top-stitch all the way around, closing that gap with the edges folded inwards.

I used a dark thread for the top and a purple thread for the bobbin to match the backing fabric.

10. To finish off your quilt, stitch around the edges of your t-shirt pieces. This is called 'stitch in the ditch' as you're stitching along previous lines of stitching, which provide your guide-line!

All done!

Now you can admire your super simple t-shirt quilt!

So do you have a pile of t-shirts saved?  Is it time you jumped in and made a start on that quilt?

You could choose to add batting to make the quilt warmer, or interfacing to make the t-shirt fabric firmer, or to add sashing or binding. There are so many ways to make a quilt - but this is the easiest method I found and I'm really happy with how my little t-shirt quilt turned out!

My daughters love it - it's made from their t-shirts, and my youngest daughter asked me to show me how to make one so she can start saving her clothes to make herself one!

For the free downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

If you liked this tutorial, I have over 100 free sewing tutorials here for you to browse through. They are for making all kinds of things and for all levels of sewing abilities. Do go and take a look at:

My Free Sewing Tutorials

And I'd love to know what you think of the video. I'm just learning and playing around with this at the moment!

Learning how to make a T-shirt Quilt

I've challenged myself to use up my fabric and crafting stash - not just some of it, but ALL of it! Yep, probably a crazy challenge, but I've reached boil over point with having too much stuff and an extreme solution seems to be the way to go!

I've done a couple of smaller projects already - and this is my first bigger one - to use up a box of t-shirts I've been saving when my daughters discard them as being too small or just not 'cool' anymore. 
I did have the idea that in the future I would make some kind of quilt for them out of the t-shirts. So with my new challenge I thought, 'why wait?'. It's winter here now in Cairns and a blanket or quilt would at least be used instead of a box of t-shirts just sitting in the cupboard!

T-shirt Upcycling

So, here's what I started with:

All kinds of shapes and sizes of designs, logos and pictures. Should make for an interesting quilt/rug if I can get it right! Hopefully not just a messed up mish-mash.

First I have cut and ironed all the designs from the t-shirts. I cut them roughly at first, then neatened the edges of each one to square them off.

The pieces are all kinds of sizes, and I also have one piece with a rounded top - it was a singlet PJ top and I cut as far out from the design as I could! I don't want to cut any of the design off to make it square, but I'm not sure what to do about the rounded top...any suggestions welcome!

A quilt, a rug or maybe a blanket?

I randomly laid out the pieces, then rearranged them to get this.

The four 'columns' of t-shirts are roughly the same width, and I think I can trim all the pieces to make them fit reasonably evenly together.

I tried to spread the colours out, but other that that, there is no reason for this ordering of the t-shirt pieces other than sizes.




How to put them together?

So there you have where I'm at now. The next step is to put the pieces together into a quilt/blanket.  

I've been checking out some posts online to see how other people have made their t-shirt quilts. Here are some bits and pieces of advice I found:

One suggestion is to cut your t-shirt pictures out and then use fusible webbing to attach them to a backing fabric and applique around them.

Sashing is another way to work around different sized pictures. This simply means adding extra fabric around the pictures to make them into the right sized blocks for your nice even sized quilt.

Some tutorials say to use iron-on interfacing on the back of each t-shirt picture as the fabric is stretchy. This should then make the blocks easier to sew evenly.

Then there is finishing the quilt around the edges. Do you stitch it all wrong sides together, quilting as you go, then add a binding around the edges?  Or stitch the front and back right sides together and then top-stitch around the outside and quilt afterwards?

Or a third option is to stitch the front and back together block by block, folding the seams over and top stitching as you go around each block.

Please Help!

Have you every made a t-shirt quilt? Do you have any advice, suggestions or opinions as to how I should continue with this project?

I have some soft knit fabric from my stash that I'm going to use for the backing, basically because it's a piece big enough to use and a nice soft fabric for a blanket/quilt.

Please leave me a comment below.
 I'm ready to get stuck into putting this 't-shirt' quilt together!

UPDATE!
I've now finished my t-shirt quilt. You can see the finished quilt, plus a photo and written tutorial - and my first ever video tutorial, showing how you can make one of your own here!

Crochet on Soda Tab Earrings and Bracelet

Last year my daughters and I started to collect soda tabs to try making some bracelets we'd seen on Pinterest. 

Here's some they made.

Pretty nice, but there's only so many you can make, and we still have an ongoing collection of soda tabs in my 'craft stash'. Another thing that needs 'using up' 

So I thought I'd combine some of my crochet learning with soda tabs, inspired by more things I've seen on Pinterest - where I now have a whole board just for Soda Tab Crafts.

I just started by playing around with some embroidery thread, a small crochet hook and some soda tabs.

Then I joined some of these together, added jump rings and earring hooks and....

 and there I had a nice unusual pair of new earrings!

 Next to try was a bracelet. Again I had no real plan, other than to practise my crochet around the soda tabs.

Once I'd finished a few and joined them together - a little differently to the earrings, I had to find a way to fasten the bracelet.

Another rummage through my stash and I found some old press studs that my mum gave me years ago.

I chose some sew in ones. Nice and simple to attach (even if I did sew one side on upside down initially...oops!).

And pretty soon I had a nice unusual bracelet to go with my new earrings!

I do like my new crochet soda tab jewellery.

What do you think? Would you wear this?

I also tried another kind of soda tab flower, which I tied to a fishtail macrame piece made previously, that could then also be tied as a bracelet.

I'm not so sure about that one.

At least I've used up a little of my stash. Making jewellery isn't going to use it up very quickly though - but I think it's definitely something I will play around with more!

Have you crocheted onto anything interesting or unusual?  Or have you crafted with soda tabs?

I'd love to hear any thoughts or ideas you might have.

To see more of my 'use what you've got' posts and ideas - go here.

How to make a Bottle Cap Mosaic

I recently made a decision to actually start using all the fabric and craft stash that I have accumulated over the years, rather than just keep adding to it and 'planning' what to make. I wrote about that here.
So, this is me making a start on using what I've got!


 We've been collecting bottle caps for a couple of years now and have a decent sized collection. Although the tops do have the recycle symbol on them, they can't be recycled at our recycle facility up here in Cairns as they are too small and jam up the machines. Not wanting them to go to landfill and stay there forever, we've been saving them to do something creative with!

A couple of years ago, I made a lamp with my elder daughter using some of the caps we'd collected. 

This school holidays my younger daughter and I finally got a round to making this mosaic.We've been talking about making one for a long time. The bags sitting in my cupboard were growing and a constant reminder that I needed to do rather than talk about it!

We'd seen lots of these mosaics on Pinterest so had a look at my plastic lid upcycling Pinterest Board for some inspiration.

My daughter settled on a turtle.

First we laid out the caps in a rough design to see what size piece of backing wood we needed.

Then once we'd bought the board (we got a piece of MDF), my daughter painted it on both sides with some blue outdoor paint we had left over from another project. We want the mosaic to be outside to had to seal the wood to prevent warping in the rain.  The blue also worked well as a background colour for our picture.

Once the paint had dried, we laid out the bottle caps on the wood to finalise our design, then gave the bottle caps a final good wash and dry.

To attach the bottle caps, we just used liquid nails glue. I had a tube in my tool box, so used that first.

Then when that glue ran out, we moved onto a bigger tube of liquid nails that fitted into my caulking gun. This was so much easier and less messy! Next time I would go straight to this!

We started gluing with the turtle, right in the middle of the board, then worked our way up from the bottom of the board with the deep sea and coral, right up to the frothy white waves at the top.

  Sometimes the tops didn't fit too well together. The glue didn't set too fast so we had a chance for a bit of shuffling and adjustment. Plus with the background painted blue, the gaps didn't really matter.

Overall, we're really pleased with the result!

We haven't decided on it's final display spot in the garden yet. Once we've chosen, I'll secure it with screws to the fence!

This was fun to make, easy enough for my daughter to do most of it by herself, and she's already talking about the next one!  Yes, we still have lots of bottle caps left!

At least it's used up some of my stash, and I know the rest will get used up soon too! We also have a fabulous piece of unique art to display in our garden too!

Do you have anything saved in your cupboards for a project that you've been planning for a long time but not yet started?

Maybe it's time to get A Round Tuit!!!