Make Tiger Great Again Shirt Men

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I've decided to beginning a monthly series called "Making Memories Last."  In this series, I will have old items with memories attached to them, and upcycle them to something new.  I'm pretty excited nigh this first mail service in the serial.  I've had a bag full of t-shirts in my closets for a while now.  And when I say a while, this bag has moved with me 3 times.  At first I had not bad ambitions to make an official "t-shirt quilt" with the borders and binding–basically the whole sheebang (that's a word, I promise).  Existence realistic, I knew I would non take the patience to make the perfect square cuts, create a binding, or manus quilt to finish.  And so in comes the t-shirt rag quilt, as well known as the non-quilter'due south quilt.  Previously, I fabricated a baby sized rag quilt for a sugariness friend, and I constitute that rag quilts are very forgiving. Please keep in mind that I am by no means a sewing expert (and that'south why I also did not make a "real" quilt).

Left:  front, Correct: back. Definitely some oldies but goodies t-shirts in there! 🙂

Let's get started.  Hither is what you will need:

~Cotton fiber t-shirts (I used 30 of varying themes such as Auburn, high schoolhouse, college, races, etc.  You could too practice an all race shirt or a college themed shirt for example).
~Rotary cutter and cutting mat are highly recommended for your sanity (you tin can buy a set up at most craft stores–don't forget your coupons!)
~Flannel (we will utilise this equally the filling)
~Fabric scissors

Commencement you will need to go through your t-shirts and encounter if whatever are smaller than the others.  I had ane that fit smaller, so I picked that one to base all of my squares off of.  I cut my squares at 13inches ten 13inches.  Originally they were 14 ten fourteen, merely I cut it wrong.  You know that proverb mensurate twice, cut once?  Yea, I should probably do that haha.  It happens 🙂  Go along in heed, that if you have bigger squares you won't demand equally many tshirts and vice versa.  It is upward to you how big y'all want to make your quilt.

If you always have the chance, y'all should definitely check out the Velcro Pygmies…they are quite the good cover ring!

Once I had my first t-shirt cutting, I used that as the template to cut the other shirts as you tin see in the final picture on the right.  When you are deciding how large you want your squares, recall you will lose an inch or and so to the seams.  I used both the forepart and dorsum of my t-shirts by making one cutting.   If I were to do this again, I would cutting the front end and the back of the shirts separately to ensure I got the all-time portion of the moving picture.  You could likewise use a slice of flannel as the bankroll. Keep in mind that the cuts do not take to exist as perfect as those on a regular quilt considering somewhen you volition be cutting the edges anyway.  But they do demand to be generally the same.

For the filling, I used flannel.  I bought different colors so when the quilt is washed and frayed, the fray-age would be different colors. I recommend white flannel for the white shirts so a different color does not prove through. I decided to use three layers of flannel in each t-shirt square.  If I were to do this over again, I would probably use 1 or ii layers of flannel.  My quilt ended up being very heavy, and information technology was very tough on my sewing machine.  Further, using 3 layers of flannel meant that I had to cutting 90 flannel squares…

Now it is time to outset sewing those squares together.  I used this sewing machine.  It wasn't super inexpensive and besides non super expensive/fancy–more of an in between sewing machine, merely it got me through this and my other footling projects 🙂 Lay the back of the t-shirt adept side facing down, followed by the three layers of flannel squares, and finally the forepart of the t-shirt on summit with the good side facing out.  Yous can determine if you want the front or back of the t-shirt as the ruffled side later.  I usually kept the square together using pins.  Next, you simply sew an "X" on each shirt.

See the "X" in the far right picture?  Yep, you accept to practise that on all of the t-shirt squares, which in my example, was xxx…eeekk!

Here are some tips on sewing the t-shirt squares:

~Exist sure to use the aforementioned thread on your upper and lower thread

~Go slow on the glossy print (your motorcar most likely will not like the gloss)

~Reverse sew at the outset and end of your "X"s to brand them stronger

The difficult part comes later on you have completed sewing all of your squares.  The placement.  Tip:  Be sure to vacuum your flooring earlier you lot do this 😉  I spent about an hour staring at my squares and deciding how I wanted to place them.  I tried my best to spread out my Auburn, white, and race shirts.  Riley helped by immediately laying on the squares every time I rearranged them, hence the dog toy beneath.

Exist sure to take a picture with your phone so you lot will remember your placement! Fourth dimension to put that sewing car to work!  I began my sewing each row together, then sewing all of the rows together. Think to sew
your seams out–you volition get employ to this, I hope!  And don't forget
to talk nicely to your sewing machine–in my case, when I sewed two
squares together, I was sewing through ten layers!  It is up to you whether y'all use pins or not.  Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't.  You too need to decide how much ruffle you desire.  If you desire a larger, more noticeable ruffle, get out more textile exposed at the seams.  For less noticeable ruffle, exit less textile exposed at the seams. I tried to proceed my seams at half an inch.

See above how the seam is facing out?  That is what will ruffle subsequently existence done to create the "rag" impact.

Only 5 rows to go!

Here is a movie of sewing the rows together.  Whenever it was time to stitch the seams, I sort of folded them over as I went.

And finally all of the rows sewed together!

Be sure to run up around the edge–you lot will want information technology to ruffle there too.  Now we are in the domicile stretch.  All that is left is the cut. Cut a notch every quarter to half an inch or so.  Do not cutting past where
you sewed.  And yep, yous take to cut notches on all of the exposed
seams.  I know, there is a lot.  Trust me, I've been there 🙂

Once you have done all of the cutting, throw information technology in the washing machine.  For larger size quilts, you may want to consider taking information technology to a dry cleaners. There will exist a lot of little strings from the fraying in your washing auto and dryer.  It will fray more than with time and washes. And voila! Here she is all finished : )

I call back Riley is just happy it is complete, and she tin can finally bask it!

While rag quilts are very easy, they can be quite time consuming.  Here is a suggested timeline to go on you lot from going insane.

Mean solar day ane–Pick t-shirts for your quilt

Day 2–Cut t-shirt squares

Day 3–Cut flannel squares

Twenty-four hours 4–Sew t-shirt squares together

Day 5–Decide on t-shirt placement and take movie

24-hour interval vi–Sew all of the rows

Twenty-four hour period 7–Sew together the rows together and sew border

Day 8–Cut notches on the exposed seams

Twenty-four hour period 9–Wash and dry

Day 10–Enjoy!

Don't forget to throw some breaks in there!

What theme of rag quilt are you going to make??

Thanks for stopping past!

Jess

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