This is the first quilt I've made with baby clothes but it is not the first quilt I have made with various sized squares. It takes a lot longer to plan these out since the shirts and images are all different sizes. So first I laid out an approximate layout with all the shirts just folded up (shown in a previous post). Then I cut off all the parts I knew I wouldn't be able to use - sleeves, snaps, most collars, etc.
Then I drew a grid showing each shirt and I listed the maximum size that the shirt could be cut to and the minimum size needed for the image on the shirt. Then I looked for patterns or common sizes that might work. I ended up having to switch a couple of shirts around and mount a couple of shirts onto a larger backing fabric but overall it worked out pretty good. Once I had decided on each finished size, I drew a second grid and wrote down the cut size of each shirt. The cut size is just the finished size in the grid above plus 1/4" on all sides. For t-shirt quilts I prefer a 1/2" seam allowance but the baby shirts are just too tiny to leave that much in the seams. Once that was decided, I cut all the shirts using a rotary cutter, mat and ruler.
Then I drew a grid showing each shirt and I listed the maximum size that the shirt could be cut to and the minimum size needed for the image on the shirt. Then I looked for patterns or common sizes that might work. I ended up having to switch a couple of shirts around and mount a couple of shirts onto a larger backing fabric but overall it worked out pretty good. Once I had decided on each finished size, I drew a second grid and wrote down the cut size of each shirt. The cut size is just the finished size in the grid above plus 1/4" on all sides. For t-shirt quilts I prefer a 1/2" seam allowance but the baby shirts are just too tiny to leave that much in the seams. Once that was decided, I cut all the shirts using a rotary cutter, mat and ruler.
There were two shirts that I really needed to be larger than the available area so I used additional parts of the shirts, like the sleeves or backing and pieced them around the main image to increase the block size.
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Then there were two shirts where I actually cut the image out and appliqued it onto a backing fabric. My favorite is the little newborn shirt. I just couldn't cut that one up, I thought it would have more meaning if you could see the size of the original newborn shirt.
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Next, I cut squares of a light/medium fusible interfacing for each shirt square. This is basically just a stabilizer that keeps the shirts from stretching too much while I quilt them. After cutting them, I use an iron on medium dry heat to fuse them to each shirt.
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I must have been doing quite a bit of quilting over the last several months since I bought the interfacing. I completely emptied my 40yd roll!! Fortunately I had just enough to finish RJ's quilt top. I'll have to buy more to start the next two quilts.
Finally I stitched all the pieces together carefully to get the main part of the quilt top completed. I still need to get fabric to use for the borders and backing but then I will be ready to quilt and finish it, yay!
Some of the shirts weren't meant to line up (like the top row) because of the size differences in the shirts but on the intersections that were supposed to line up, most of them came out pretty well!
I can't wait to finish up this quilt and get to the other two quilts and then have another happy customer!
