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Which one of these people ran 75 marathons to earn all
these tee shirts?
Which one sat at a sewing machine for weeks to stitch them together?
Which one begged his bad mommy for attention and regular meals?
How could you tell? (Don't answer that....)
Mondo gonzo free-range old clothing/tee-shirt quilt
pattern/strategy
I evolved the this approach when my friend Takashi,
above left, and his wife, shlepped two large cartons, containing 75 of his
marathon tee shirts, into my playroom, and asked me to turn them into one quilt. (If I'd used a 14" rectangle from each,
we would have the perfect termite tent for the Hearst Castle).
I call this approach "free-range," because, unlike
most tee-shirt quilt patterns, it doesn't require that each garment piece be cut to
the exact same size. It's "gonzo" because you make it up as you go along.
It's "mondo" because it lets you use dozens of tee shirts in one bed
quilt (Conventional tee-shirt quilts usually include no more than a dozen.)
The basic idea: Cut closely around each logo, and used narrow
strips of quilters' cotton in-between, to equalize the pieces and fit them
all together.
This approach works for making a quilt from almost any
garments or fabrics that can be ironed at a moderate heat.
You will need:
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A reliable iron, with steam capacity (or a spray bottle.)
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A thin cotton press cloth (any clean piece of muslin).
-
A non-stick or Teflon press cloth (available from the notions department of many fabric stores, and from
www.clotilde.com ),
or clean scrap paper (no ink,
print, or crayon marks).
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Clothing
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Shhhhh: The secret ingredient: Many yards of light-to-medium-weight
fusible interfacing (see #2, below). It's usually carried by the chain fabric stores (rarely
found in fine quilt stores). I buy about a yard for every 5 tee shirts. If in doubt, buy extra.
This stuff is cheap. If you have a two cartons of clothing to integrate,
just buy the bolt.
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Good-quality cotton
quilting fabric in your choice of colors or designs, for the sashing (the strips
of fabric between
the pieces of clothing) and the borders. Two yards minimum, for the
front if your quilt, if it will be larger than lap size. (And more for the back).
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Iron-cleaning product (sold in tubes in most fabric
stores.)
Procedure
1. Launder the
garments. If they have very intense background color―especially yellow or red―color bleeding may be a problem. (The
older the garment, the more likely). To test, soak a corner in water, place the dripping wet corner on a paper towel, place a weight on top (shmaltz
jars work great) and leave it alone for a half-hour.
If the color leaches to the paper, treat the garment with Retayne (R) ( from
www.dharmatrading.com or
www.clotilde.com ), and test again.
If it still runs, don't use it.
(Don't worry too much about holes or permanent stains. Like
wrinkles, they add character. Or, unlike wrinkles, you can patch them
artistically.)
2. Cut all the way around the area you want
in a fairly square or rectangular shape, adding plenty of extra space beyond
what you think you'll need--- ideally 2
inches or more. This isn't a precise cut. If in doubt, leave more. If you must include seams or even
part of the collar for a generous margin of error, that's okay.
3. Repeat step #2 for all the garments, creating
oversized, rough-cut squares and
rectangles. Don't discard the unused portions of the shirt yet. Set
them aside―you may need them
later.
4. Preheat your iron to the setting specified on
the interfacing.
5. If you're not certain of the garment's fiber
content (or even if you are, but it isn't cotton or silk), test a small piece first at
the temperature recommended by the fusible manufacturer. Make sure the fabric
doesn't melt. If it DOES melt, reduce the heat, and keep testing, until you
find the highest possible setting at which the fabric isn't damaged. Then
try pressing a bit of the fusible on at that temperature. It will probably
stick---but if it doesn't, you must either (a) not use that garment in
this quilt, or (b) go to plan B---stiffen that fabric some other way.
(Appliqué it to a backing? Suggestions welcomed.)
6. Unroll the interfacing and
lay it on the ironing board so that the bumpy-plasticky side faces up, and the
soft fuzzy side is down. Lay your first tee shirt piece on top, right
side up. Use a press cloth between the iron and printed designs (ESPECIALLY
if they're silk-screened---there'll be a texture difference you can feel).
Press firmly, for the count specified by the directions, using steam. Start
at the center of the piece and move out.
Be very careful to keep the face of your iron from touching the glue side
of the fusible interfacing. If this is a threat, use
a non-stick press-sheet, or clean scrap paper, as a barrier between the iron
and the interfacing. (Scrape the press-sheet clean every time you move it,
or take a new piece of scrap paper. If the iron does get gunk on it---which
it will---clean it before proceeding ).
If you accidentally press a wrinkle into the garment, peel the
interfacing away while it is warm, and and fix it.
7. Keep doing this until all your squares and
rectangles are more or less backed. Don't worry if your fusing job isn't
perfect yet, and a few corners are hanging loose―you will still have another chance to cut and fuse.
8. Take all your rough-cut interfaced pieces to your floor, or your design wall, and
brainstorm you layout.
You may want a chronological order, or use themes or colors as a guideline .
You may want to highlight some pieces in a central area, surround them with
an inner border of quilter's cotton, and then circle other pieces around them.
For Takashi's quilt above, the tee shirts were arranged chronologically in
long vertical rows.
9. Now's the time for simple math. You have
to figure out which pieces need to be what size. Some pieces will need to be made
a bigger, some smaller. To make pieces smaller, trim your 'margin of error.'
To grow them, use narrow strips of the background/sashing fabric.
For the marathon quilt, I laid out 7 columns of tees. In each
column, I identified the widest piece. Then I added one inch of sashing to
both sides of that widest piece. All the other pieces in the same column now
had to be widened to equal that measurement, using different widths of 'sashing'
fabrics for each.
By laying them out, I also established an overall maximum
vertical length for my columns, based on the longest one. Sashing strips
were added to the tops and bottoms of individual pieces and columns, to make
all the columns equal in
height.
10. Use a walking foot, a Teflon foot, or a
metal foot, to sew interfaced fabrics. Do not use plastic presser
feet---they drag on interfacing, making it difficult to slide through the
machine.
11. Use a very sturdy batting. I like 100%
cotton Warm'n'Natural, because it is very strong without having to be
quilted closely. And use a strong fabric as a backing.
12. These quilts are quite a
bit heavier and thicker than the average, so machine quilting is a good idea. Or
tie them at regular intervals. Don't even THINK about hand-quilting, unless
you are willing to risk carpal tunnel, and/or months of aggravation. Send me a picture!
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