The last time that I was at my parents' house, my mom gave me 2 bags full of t-shirts that she no longer wanted. When making t-shirt yarn, I use from the armpit down, and only the non-printed t-shirt parts. So what to do with the top halves? The show that I am taping next week has to do with quilting and how that can be "green." I am focusing on the Grandma's Flower Garden pattern. I make my templates from food boxes. I have used scrap fabric from other projects, but I wanted to use "recycled" fabric as well. So why not use t-shits? Normally you wouldn't want to quilt with such stretchy fabric, but using a template and hand stitching with it works great. For this t-shirt quilt I am using large hexagon templates. I have been saving all of my cereal boxes to make the templates out of. Using the larger templates will make this project come along much faster. Plus the material will make a soft quilt. A lot of these shirts bring back memories. In the picture you can see how I fussy cut the Hilton logo to show. I remember helping my mom out at the Hilton during their summer parties (she use to work there). That was also during the 80's when neon colors were in. I'm going to really enjoy making this quilt and then using it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Grandma's Flower Garden out of t-shirts
The last time that I was at my parents' house, my mom gave me 2 bags full of t-shirts that she no longer wanted. When making t-shirt yarn, I use from the armpit down, and only the non-printed t-shirt parts. So what to do with the top halves? The show that I am taping next week has to do with quilting and how that can be "green." I am focusing on the Grandma's Flower Garden pattern. I make my templates from food boxes. I have used scrap fabric from other projects, but I wanted to use "recycled" fabric as well. So why not use t-shits? Normally you wouldn't want to quilt with such stretchy fabric, but using a template and hand stitching with it works great. For this t-shirt quilt I am using large hexagon templates. I have been saving all of my cereal boxes to make the templates out of. Using the larger templates will make this project come along much faster. Plus the material will make a soft quilt. A lot of these shirts bring back memories. In the picture you can see how I fussy cut the Hilton logo to show. I remember helping my mom out at the Hilton during their summer parties (she use to work there). That was also during the 80's when neon colors were in. I'm going to really enjoy making this quilt and then using it.
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Great idea and these would make great coasters too. Thanks for stopping by my blog to visit too. Best wishes,
ReplyDeleteCindy
What an awesome idea. My kids always want to keep their t-shirts. They would make an great gift to them.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Your kids could even help make it.
ReplyDeleteHow neat.. So why do you need so many cereal boxes to make templates? They are just for cutting out your hexagons right? Then you just sew the hexagons together? As far as doing the stitching by hand, do you do a slip stitch on the back? Or anything special? I'm not a sewer but would LOVE to learn. I would also love to learn to do quilts, crochet (more than a single/double stitch) and lots more. Thanks for posting this very neat idea!
ReplyDeleteYou need a lot of templates, because you do not remove the template until all the surrounding sides have been sewn. You also need the templates to make sure you keep the shape, because t-shirts are very stretchy. You join the fabric using a whip stitch. You can watch a video on this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2krboL-FU&feature=channel_page & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y646SyqxifA&feature=channel
ReplyDeleteOr do a youtube search for me: Textiles4you. I have several eco-craft videos up, including some quilting episodes.
Thanks for your comment! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask :)
oh i love this, what a great idea!
ReplyDelete