Zoe and I wanted to make Dave a special present this year using materials we had collected over the years. He has many old t-shirts and a need for a warm comfy throw blanket. He has several souvenir shirts or shirts that hold some special memory. Instead of letting them rot in boxes, we chose to up-cycle them and make a warm blanket.
Cut a square out of the top of the t-shirt, placing the 12x12 block anywhere, as long as you aren’t crossing any seams. You can cut front and back or just place your cutting mat inside the shirt to cut the front pattern only.
You need 20 of these t-shirt (or other material, not fleece) squares. My template is a little larger than 12x12, this gave me a nice edge around the t-shirt. I used a yard stick and rotary cutter for the 20 pieces of fleece.
Take a 12x12 piece of fleece, place wrong side to wrong side of t-shirt block.
Sew an “X” through both pieces of material, sewing on the fleece side first.
This is where Zoe helped me. She then chose a different color thread and turned the block over to the t-shirt side and sewed an “X” over my “X” – this made it more special.
We were very excited to finish all 20 blocks!
We then laid the blocks out in a pattern. We used 5 rows and 4 columns. You can increase this for a larger quilt. We wanted to end up with just a bed topper/throw size.
You will then sew each row together, starting with the top left block. Still, your fleece block is your most accurately measured block. Match up the fleece blocks and sew the blocks together.
After you have your rows sewed, you will then begin sewing the rows together. I started with the bottom rows. Again, matching the fleece ends and sandwiching the fleece inside the t-shirt material, sewing through all layers.
Be sure to keep your seems flattened as you sew across them.
For the binding, I just folded a half inch of the fleece over onto the t-shirt and gave it about a quarter inch stitch all the way around.
The finished product!
Had I known I would actually complete this project and that it would turn out so cool, I would have purchased a different block of fleece. This is all I had on hand and the goal was to not spend money.
After this, I trimmed up the t-shirt edges down to the fleece edge. It looks much cleaner, I just didn’t get a picture before wrapping it up!
