T-shirt quilts are a great way to upcycle old T's! We had a myriad of family reunion shirts just begging to be put together in a quilt. Ruth McCormick did a fantastic job piecing the top, and was really helpful throughout the process with thoughtful advice and ideas ( www.ruthmccormick.com)!

The problems with quilting something like this are: 1) you need a cohesive look that doesn't leave some areas quilted and some areas unquilted (unless specifically asked), 2) you a need a design that doesn't compete with or obscure the shirt designs, 3) the t-shirt material can cause the hopping foot to stick while quilting, and 4) you can have a wide variety of fabric colors to contend with.

Our stippling pantograph is the perfect solution to these problems! It covers the entire quilt without being too dense. This open pattern doesn't compete with the shirt prints. More importantly, there is no backtracking, and a neutral thread color looks nice even against the red and blue sashings. Of course you can do this by hand, but when its a large quilt nothing beats automation! And the pantograph was designed to maintain a consistent, homogenous spacing throughout the entire pattern.

We specifically wanted an antique look for this quilt (some of the t-shirts are 20 years old), and we chose not to pre-shrink the batting. If you chose to pre-shrink the batting for a more crisp look, the stippling pattern would still look fantastic.

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