College Dorm Quilt

Have you ever made a T-shirt quilt?

I can finally say that I have!

Last winter my husband's sister asked me to make a quilt for her son for his high school graduation, and of course I said I would!  What a perfect gift for my oldest nephew.  I still remember dancing with him on my hip at my wedding -- when he was three.  Now he's over 6 ft tall, and starting his first year of college.

And his mom kept LOTS of his T-shirts!

Of course none of them were the same size, 

so the layout was tricky.

My girls (& our cat) loved helping figure out

this huge puzzle of a quilt!

I used various Kona solids to make the blocks even.

The largest T-shirt pieces measured about 14 inches, and I added fabric to the other pieces to make 24 square blocks.  Some solid sashing around the edges helped make it large enough for a twin (extra long) bed.

This quilt is heavy!  And was not so fun to quilt!

I interfaced each T-shirt piece prior to sewing them together, which added quite a bit of weight (and took forever)!  But it made the stretchy T-shirt material much easier to work with -- so I can't imagine skipping this step.

I quilted straight lines vertically, about 3-4 inches apart, and then bound it in matching Kona solids, with a zig-zag stitch.

I'm so happy to have this quilt finished!

It was really fun watching my nephew open his graduation present -- he told his younger brother to beware that his mom might have already started stealing his T-shirts, too!

Good thing I have another 4 years until my second nephew graduates from high school.

But then there are 3 more after him, yikes!

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday.