Rock Legends T-Shirt Quilts {Two Finished}

Rock Legends T-Shirt Quilt at Auction.
Photo from Rock Legends Cruise III

Until recently I dreaded making T-Shirt quilts. But when I learned about the "Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts" method I immediately downloaded their book with step by step instructions and tips. I poured over the book and was excited about my next T-shirt quilt.

In the Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts book I discovered:

• there is no need to use stabilizer on the T-Shirts
• no sashing is required
• a faster method for cutting the fronts and backs of T-shirts
• template sizes to ensure designs aren't cut off
• a formula to figure the size of quilt needed for the number of blocks
• a quicker method for fitting the puzzle together
• an important step that insures the stretchy T-shirts lay flat after quilting.
• the joy of creating a beautiful T-shirt quilt to be proud of.
• the method I will use for all future T-Shirt quilts.
• a book I highly recommend! 

Several months ago I was asked to make 2 Queen size T-shirt quilts for the raffles on the Rock Legends Cruise III presented by the Native American Heritage Association. I had just 2 weeks to piece, quilt and deliver both quilts. Because of the Too Cool T-Shirt Quilt method I was ready to dive in and knew I'd be able to save time with cutting and skipping the stabilizer. These would be my first quilts with this method so while I was ready, I was still a bit nervous about the time frame.

 Cutting T-Shirt Designs and keeping all the autographs and designs intact was a bit of a challenge on some of the shirts. When my brother learned what I was working on he told me it was just sacrilegious to cut up all these autographed T-Shirts. I'm sure many agree with him, but I had to do what was asked of me. It was an honor to work on such a great project.

Autographed T-shirts were among what I had to work with

 After cutting it was time to organize all the squares by size.

 I'm not the best with computers and the excel program so I went old fashioned with graph paper and a marker to create all the pieces for my puzzle. Then it was onto organizing them into an arrangement I liked.  Once finished arranging and rearranging I divided the design into four quadrants for piecing.

 Partial seams are a necessity when piecing a quilt with multiple block sizes.

I was thrilled to discover who flat everything was after all the quadrants were sewn together!

 Once layered and pinned together with Pinmoor anchors and straight pins I was ready to Free Motion Quilt. For these quilts I outlined each of the designs with matching thread and then did a large meander across the rest of the quilt.

Completed Rock Legends Autographed T-shirt Quilt....Auctioned off on the cruise earlier this year.

The second Rock Legends T-Shirt Quilt

I really like how both of these quilts came together and turned out. In the end I was able to finish both quilts with a day to spare thanks to the Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts method of preparation and construction. Amazingly I'm actually looking forward to my next T-shirt quilt.

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share another quilting adventure with you.

God Bless & Happy Quilting,

Marcia