betchydemi ✩: DIY Old T Shirt Quilt

How to make use of your old t shirts

After being on drill team for all of my freshman, sophomore, and half of my junior year, I had a numerous amount of tshirts. Some of them had stains and holes and shrunk from all the washes over the past 2 1/2 years. (the blanket is actually a lot bigger than what it appears to be in this picture posted above.)

So at a spur of the moment decision I decided to cut all of my tshirts up and turn it into a quilt. It only took me a day to make it.

The way I did it was for FREE. Most people who want things like this done, get it done professionally, but I think when you make it your self it makes it even more special.

What you'll need:

-Old t shirts that you know you will never wear again (I used about less than 20 using both front and back of the t shirts)

-A blanket large enough to cover the t shirts (I used an old soft blanket that used to lie around in the living room just because.)

-A sewing machine, or you could hand stitch it, but that would take forever, I used a sewing machine, I recommend it but only if you know how to use it.

-Thread that matches (I used black.)

What you need to do:

-Cut up t shirts in square shapes, where you get the part of the tshirt you want ( I recommend to cut a little larger, because once you stitch it together they become smaller.)

-Figure out how you want to arrange the t shirts

-Pin the t shirts with the "Right sides together"-- meaning that the outside of the tshirt will face the other t shirt as you start to sew them together.

- Prepare sewing machine (bobbin, and then thread the machine)

-Sew along the edges, using about a quarter of an inch away from the cutting edge

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Once you have sewn your shirts together,

-Check for any holes or opening because if later found, you will have to hand stitch it (Which is harder when the blanket is sewn all together.)

-Lay out the blanket you want on the outside for the opposite side of your quilt flat on the ground

-Align t shirt quilt and blanket with "right sides together" (therefore meaning that they are inside out(which that may be confusing reading it, but once you lay it out and do it, it will make perfect sense in why you do that))

-Pin the edges together, and cut excess of the blanket (if there is any, but don't cut off to much)

-Now you can begin sewing the edges like you did before with the quilt.

-Sew around all the edges, until you get to at least one t shirt square away from the close and turn your blanket inside out.

-You then will have to hand stitch the rest

Then there you have a perfect home made blanket that you made yourself. It really sound like a lot of work, but in the end for my blanket it's nearly worth a $250+ blanket with all the added costs of the t shirts over time.

I hope that you will read this and try this out with your old t shirts. My blanket it really soft because of how some of the shirts are really old and over washed!

Ask me any questions!

Here are some pictures of me wearing some of these shirts from my freshman and sophomore year of high school! (notice: these pics are from FRESHMAN year...)