This fear is probably unwarranted, since I've never actually used one before, but in my mind they all look something like this:
Needless to say, I tend to choose crafting projects that don't involve these murderous machines of terror. However, I've recently wanted to make a t-shirt quilt. I had a drawer stuffed with old school t-shirts that I would never wear again, but I didn't really want to throw them away. I pawed through pages of how-to-make-a-blanket-of-shirt-awesome search results, but all of the tutorials I found required a sewing machine. Some of my friends have lovely grandmothers who sewed t-shirt quilts for them, but evidently my grandma doesn't have time or care enough to do that shit. I decided that I would just make one of those fleece tie blanket things on a colossal scale- and it (sort of) worked!
Yayyyyy!
To do this project, you'll need anywhere from eight (you can use front and back) t-shirts for a 4x4 square quilt to like, 100 shirts for a giant technicolor quilt of dreams. I used thirteen shirts.
1. First grab a t-shirt, scissors, a ruler, and a pencil for marking.
2. Cut off the sleeves and bottom hem, making a rectangle of the shirt. If you want all the shirts to be perfect little squares, go ahead and do that- I was mostly concerned with making large enough blocs and getting all of the design in. My rectangles were 15" x 21".
3. Cut a square from each corner of the shirt. I cut 1 1/2" squares.
4. Now, cut strips along the side of the shirt the depth of your corner cuts. Be sure to cut the same amount of strips on every shirt- make them as thick or thin as you want.
5. After you've done steps 2 through 4 for all the shirts you're using, you can start to tie them together. Double knot the strips of the shirts together. Just a warning: you are never going to want to tie another knot again. In your life. Ever.
6. Woohoo! You've got the top half done! Now you'll need a large piece of fleece (I got 2 yards and it fit my top cover almost perfectly). Line up the fleece to the t-shirts and cut strips to match up with the top ones.
7. Tie the strips from the quilt to the strips from the fleece. Once you've gone all the way around the edge, you are finished! You now have an AWESOME memory quilt- no diabolical sewing machine required!
:D
I hope you liked this tutorial. I hope to be blogging more DIY ideas in the future! Also, I'm sorry for my lame, boring blog layout. I'm still learning how to Internet.
Peace Out~
