Recycle Your Old T-Shirts and Create a Personal, One-of-a-Kind Quilt

A while ago, I shared a tutorial for recycling old clothes into home decorations. In it, I mentioned a popular trend for recycling old graphic T-shirts: making a quilt. I’d always liked the idea; it seemed like a nice way to eke out more use from old clothes that aren’t wearable anymore. But I never seemed to have enough old T-shirts collected to make a decent-sized quilt. Well, after a recent closet clean-out, I have broken the threshold and can finally try my hand at quilting! Though I have done a decent amount of sewing, I have never made a quilt before, so this is a beginner’s account and I am writing it with the view of helping other beginners attempt the venture themselves. Come along with me and see the process step-by-step.

My finished T-shirt quilt.

What You’ll Need

• T-shirts (the number you’ll need will depend on how large a quilt you want and how large the blocks you can cut from the T-shirts are)
• Fusible interfacing
• Rulers
• Fabric scissors
• Pins or clips for holding things together for sewing
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Iron
• Bias tape
• Fabric for backing
• Quilt batting
• Large, sharp needle
• Pearl cotton, size 8 (or yarn)

How to Do It

1. The first step is to plan out the quilt. Thinking through each step will decrease the chances of problems later. I decided to make my quilt pretty simple. All the blocks would be the same size, so I laid out the T-shirts I was going to use and figured out how large I could make the blocks. With my supplies, I could make 20 blocks that were each 15 × 15 inches.

2. Once you’ve planned things out, you can start cutting. To prep the T-shirts, first cut along the seams so you can lay them flat in one layer. Then cut out the blocks, whatever size you determined you need. I had quilting rulers and a rotary cutter to do this, but you can make a template out of cardboard, trace around it with chalk or pen, then cut the blocks out with scissors. Try to center the graphic as much as you can.

3. Cut out the interfacing in the same way, at the same size.

4. Iron the fusible interfacing to the backs of the T-shirt blocks. There is a right and wrong side to interfacing—one side has little bumps that are the adhesive, so that side should go against the T-shirt fabric. Don’t iron directly against the interfacing; use a scrap of fabric in between. Make sure the interfacing is fully fused to the T-shirt block.

Take care not to stretch the fabric when you’re cutting it out or it won’t be the right size or shape (left). When pinning to sew the blocks together, lay the right sides of the fabric together and sew along the joining edge (right).

5. At this point, you can lay out your blocks to design the quilt. I tried to space out the different colors I had.

6. Now you can start sewing the blocks together. Line up the edges of the fabric (placing right-sides together) and use either pins or clips to hold the pieces together while you sew. For my quilt, I first sewed together each row of four blocks to make five strips.

7. Iron the seams flat.

8. Sew the strips together. As the quilt grows, it may become difficult to manipulate the fabric into the sewing machine. I tried to neatly fold up the excess fabric so that I could get a better handle on it, but the weight sometimes meant that it didn’t feed properly into my sewing machine. Be aware that you might need to wrestle with it a little. Go slowly!

Sew the blocks into strips first, and then sew the strips together to form the quilt top (left). Assemble the quilt with a backing, batting, and the quilt top layered together (right).

9. Iron the seams flat.

10. You should now have the top of the quilt finished! Lay it out and measure its dimensions.

11. Cut the quilt batting and the fabric you’re using for the backing to the same size as your quilt top. I was using some old sheets for the backing, but it wasn’t quite large enough, so I sewed on strips of extra fabric to get it to the right size.

12. Sandwich the quilt top, batting, and quilt back together. (Make sure the right sides of the fabric are facing out! It’s no fun to realize that you sewed your quilt inside out.) Use a straight edge to square up the sides and cut off any extra fabric.

13. Now you can start with the quilt binding. Bias tape is the easiest option here; just tuck the bias tape around the quilt edge, and pin or clip it to hold it in place for sewing. Try to make sure it is even on the front and back, so you can sew it easily in one go. Again, be warned that this will have a lot of bulk and sewing might mean wrestling with it; go slowly!

Pin or clip the bias tape around the edge of the quilt, making sure that all layers of the quilt are bound (left). Sew the binding into place carefully (right).

14. You’re almost done! The quilt is fully assembled now, and all that’s left is the finishing touches. Since the quilt isn’t technically “quilted,” we need some way of making sure the layers don’t separate. I used some size 8 pearl cotton thread and a large needle and put ties at each “crossroad” where the T-shirt blocks join. These ties go through the quilt front-to-back and will help keep the top, batting, and back together.

15. That’s the quilt finished! I’d advise putting it through a wash before using it.

Use a large, sharp needle to get thread or thin yarn through all the layers of the quilt. These ties will help keep the layers together.

Additional Tips

• The fusible interfacing is a critical part of the quilt. Jersey knit fabric, what T-shirts are made of, is very stretchy in all directions. The interfacing stabilizes this. If you tried to sew the fabric without the interfacing, it would stretch and bunch and you wouldn’t end up with a nice, flat, squared quilt.
• If you have little holes in your T-shirts, you can fix these after attaching the interfacing. Just find a color-matching thread and sew with the zigzag stitch in all different directions across the hole. I had to fix two holes in my quilt like this, and you can only see them if you look closely.

I hope this step-by-step description inspires or reassures you that even quilting novices can successfully create awesome one-of-a-kind quilts! T-shirt quilts are a fun present and a great way to get more use out of retired clothes. Have you ever made one before? Have any additional advice or comments? Please share them below!