Cheerleader T-Shirt Quilt

This won’t be the last t-shirt quilt you all see. They are sort of my bread and butter. I do more t-shirt quilt commissions than I do anything else, and they help out with a lot around here. Graduation season is picking up, and I’m starting to see inquiries and am getting orders. I’ve completed two already and am meeting someone for a 3rd.

In honor of graduation season coming upon us (a time that is often busier than Christmas for me), I’m doing a post on one of the senior quilts I made last year. This one was interesting because the school colors were black and silver. You would think this makes for a boring or “ugly” combination. But I realized as we looked through the fabric that it was also a combination that was hard to get wrong. In fact, it made for a nice contrast to the shirts!

So I’ll show you guys a bit of my process. For starters, I make a draft. This was for a basic layout - no sashing or borders. The name was about the only frill. I’ve gotten rather good at drafting layouts far more complicated on Microsoft Word.

I use fusible interfacing to make sure that jersey knit stays put. It’s stretchy and likes to bunch up without a stabilizer. The shirts themselves were quick since I wasn’t doing a border. There was one spot open, and I made a quick 9-patch to match the backing. This is a great example of why I tell folks not to stress about how many shirts I’ll need. I usually tell them to send me what they want included, and I’ll try to figure out a way to make them all fit.

This one was made of the senior’s cheerleading shirts. There were plenty to be had and a generous amount of glitter! I liked the traces of pink in the shirts; they “popped” once they were placed beside the black and silver school colors.

For the backing, my client chose an “oil slick” design that was a nice and playful balance for the black and silver school colors. I used the same fabric in the front 9-patch as well as the letters of the name.

This particular quilt was pretty fun to make!