Good Afternoon!  It is my #1 son’s birthday today:). Happy Birthday!!  A few months ago, as I was cleaning out his room making space for my quilting machine, I came across his old counselor shirts from working at our church’s youth camp. He had quite a bright collection of them.:)

I knew immediately that these could not be thrown out or given away.  It was T-shirt Quilt time to be sure:)!

I fussy cut around the embroidery by placing a small cutting mat inside of the shirt and rotary cutting around it.  I used my Quilt in a Day 4.5″ fussy cut ruler.  A fussy cut ruler makes the cutting easy! 

I cut the logo, saved the buttons, cut the inside logo, and cut the shirt.  The shirt I cut into strips to use as the logs for the square.   

Now, the problem with T-shirt quilts is that the fabric is very stretchy so it needs to be stabilized.  This part takes time and a lot of iron on interfacing.  If you decide to make a t-shirt quilt, please please don’t forget this step.  You will be sorry if you do.  You will have a wonky quilt in the end.

• I find it easy to lay my interfacing with the sticky side up on my ironing board and then lay my pieces right side up on top of it.
• Place a paper towel over all of the piece and iron away.
• Peel the paper towel off 
• Magic! All of my pieces are stabilized!

To make things even stronger, I cut some old, scratchy fabric that I save just for backing stabilizer into 14.5″ squares.   I wish I would have cut them into 16″ squares because no mater how straight and centered I get the center square, in the end they seem to be a bit off and hang off the end.   So next time I will remember to cut my square bigger and trim down in the end.

• I pressed the center mark of my fabric, 
• Put some glue in the center
• Placed the center square on top.

As you can see in the photo, I went around the embroidery square with a 1″ black strip to add an accent to it.   I used a knit here, but wish I would have used a quilting cotton.   Live and learn, right?

I stitched and flipped my log strips around my center square.  Every now and then I added another 1″ black round to give an added dimension and a bit of wonkiness to this fun, active quilt. I moved this round to different places on the different squares.

I always love the squaring up part of a stitch and flip stabilized block.  Pretty!!

I sashed the blocks with black and a colored corner stone.  

I love all of the bright colors!  I even stitched the buttons on!  

He had 12 shirts, so there are twelve sets of buttons.  Yep, it must be love because I had sewed 36 buttons on a quilt in the Arizona summer!  



It was worth it though.  I really like how they look, how they add another dimension to the quilt, and how I used every part of the shirts..  These are some really cute buttons!

I used the inside logo as an accent on the back.  How cute is that?!

I really like how this quilt turned out.  And while my son does not NEED another quilt,  I know he is going to love it:)❤️.   

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing in my creative journeys. I hope you have a SWEET rest of your day:)!