Submitted by Sandie Griego on Fri, 12/14/2012 - 20:32
I know that T-shirt quilts are very popular. I have only made two; one for my hubby and one for a friend.
My hubby has an Indian heritage and loves the beautiful t-shirts of Indian scenes. He is not a person who gives up on a garment so he wears them until they are complete worn out. A couple of years ago, I took some out of his side of the closet without his knowledge. They magically reappeared in a quilt I gave him for Christmas. Debbie Westerman was wonderful to quilt it for me on short notice. 
The next T-shirt quilt I have made is for a Boy Scout friend who was leaving the country for a new position with his company. He posted on Facebook that he was getting rid of 30 years worth of T-shirts. I could not let him leave with some memories to take with him. I ask him to select his favorite t-shirts and bring them to me. He picked up his quilt the day before he left for Australia. This is my friend who introduced me to geo-cashing. When it came time to select the quilting design, my friend Pam Seeger (Knot Just My Quilts) recommended a topographic design. If you are a scouter, you will appreciate the other aspects of the quilt. His Woodbadge patrol is a bear, patrol color; black. I met him while working on Golden Acorn, which is the scout level leadership training like Woodbadge. The back of the quilt is fabric with bears and gold acorns.
Working on T-shirts quilts are not one of my favorite things to sew on. T-shirts have to be stabilized because they are made of stretchy fabric. It is hard to make them square and keep them that way while you are working on them. Having said that, they are fun to do and see how they turn out. Because everyone has their own library of t-shirts, each one can be different and have any number of layouts.
I also have a bin of t-shirts already cut out and stabilized ready for a scout t-shirt quilt of my very own. Have I started on it? Nooooo, but I will some day. It is just one of the many projects I would like to get done now that I am not writing classes and teaching guide classes. Maybe I will take it with me to the American Sewing Guild sewing retreat in January. Such fun.