T-Shirt Quilt

Do you or someone in your life have a TON of t-shirts that you don't wear anymore but don't necessarily want to get rid of? My boyfriend has this problem. My solution...a t-shirt quilt!

I searched the web to get ideas on how to begin and saw sites charging up to $600 for you to send in your shirts and then they assemble the quilt for you and ship it back. While I'm sure it would turn out absolutely perfect, I wanted mine to have the "handmade" aspect to it - I think that makes things more sentimental. Luckily, I was able to find a website, You Can Make This, that had a PDF pattern guide for a simple, do-it yourself t-shirt quilt. I did have to purchase it for $7.50 in order to download it - but it was well worth it!

Don't be intimidated it wasn't really as hard as it sounds. Fortunately for me, I had my mom to provide her sewing machine and to  help and supervise with the actual sewing but if you can sew in a straight line - you'll be fine!

The pattern called for 12 shirts (keep in mind you will be cutting these up so make sure they are shirts you plan on no longer wearing) in order to make a 4 foot x 5 foot quilt.

After a quick trip to JoAnn's or your local fabric store to pick up the other essentials:
- 6 Yards of Fusible Interfacing
- 2 Yards of Cotton Fabric for Sashing Strips
- 2 Yards of Fleece
- Marking Pen or Chalk
- Thread to Match Fabric
- 1 Size 14 Universal or Knit Sewing Machine Needle
...you're ready to begin!

Mind you, there is A LOT of cutting, pinning, and sewing but it totally doable. We finished the quilt over the span of a weekend but if you really put your mind to it, you could have finished it in one day.

Here is my finished product...

T-Shirt Quilt



My shirt consisted of all racing related shirts since he is a race mechanic but you can use any type/theme of shirts. I ended up giving this quilt to my boyfriend as part of his Valentine's Day gift and he LOVED it!

 

It ended up being about the size of a twin bed quilt and is actual really warm! It is a perfect blanket to use on a chilly night! 

Personalized Wall Art

 

When trying to decorate our spare bedroom for my, then 5 year old, "soon-to-be bonus daughter" (I hate the label of "step" - it just reminds me of the wicked stepmom and stepsisters from Cinderella) I knew I wanted to do something to make her feel special and that this was really a room of her own. 

 

Luckily, I was able to incorporate a lot of furniture I had from my bedroom as a little girl! I decided to use a lot of bright accent colors since we have white walls (it's a rental so I really didn't want to paint and then re-paint).

While sitting in there one night, starting at the huge blank wall above the bed, I decided I wanted to put her name up there.  I thought it would be a fun idea to get a whole bunch of different frames, paint them different colors, and then print out each letter of her name, frame it, and hang it with ribbon!

I headed down to our local thrift store (2 frames for $1) and bought 6 different frames - both 4" x 6" and 5" x 7" then hit up Home Depot and had samples mixed of 4 different neon colors - blue, purple, pink, and lime green. I painted the frames that night and let them dry. I used Microsoft Word and printed each letter of her name in a different font and cut them out in appropriate sizes to fit each frames. Lastly, I bought a spool of ribbon and used a staple gun to attach the ribbon to the back of each frame and tied a bow at the top. We then hung them in a scattered formation on the wall...



 

 

The look on her face when she first walked into her very own room at "Daddy Brad and Kristin's" house was priceless! She constantly tells me that is the "most favorite" part of her room!