How to Make a T-Shirt Quilt: (Week 2) Cut the T-Shirts

Welcome to week 2 of my 6-week guide to making a simple T-shirt quilt.

Last week I discussed all of the supplies you need to make a T-shirt quilt. This week I am going to show you how I cut the T-shirts into squares.

The first thing I usually do is use scissors to roughly cut out the design on the T-shirt. I make sure that I cut it bigger than the 12 1/2 inch template that I will use for the final trimming.

Once I have cut the design away from the rest of the T-shirt I use my quilt square template to make a more precise trimming. I try to make sure that the design is fairly centered and that it is straight.

Then I use a rotary cutter to cut all the way around.

You will notice that the T-shirt design below has more blank space below it than above. This was due to the neckline of the T-shirt and the design placement.

The T-shirt below had a design that almost entirely filled every bit of the 12 1/2 inch template. Thankfully, I only have to use a 1/4 inch seam allowance to sew the squares together but it is going to be close.

The small design pictured below was actually on the left chest area. I could have cut it smaller and then used 4 small designs together to make the size of a larger block.

However, I chose to make all of my blocks the same size and not use any fabric in between. Remember, I am going for simple here.