T-Shirt Quilt Along, Getting Started

Alright folks.  If you're not into the quilting thing, I'd suggest moving along.  Here's a picture for your trouble.  Have a great day.

Whats not to love about a man who can work extrication tools?

For those of you who are into that quilting thang, please, forge ahead, and lets get this party started!

Here's the dealio:  Its a lot harder to write this all out for you all than I realized.  Its not actually hard but it is more than I thought.  So that's why its taken me so long.  Sorry about that.  But here we are, then end of July, and I'm getting around to doing it.  Which, if I remember correctly, is about how I saw this going, except I thought it would be ending now... so basically, not how I saw this going.  Ok, moving right along...

I have responded to those of you who said you wanted to make this and left comments on the original blog for correct sizing and numbers of t-shirts.  However, I'd like to de-mistify this thing as much as possible for you, so I'll first share how I figured out the number of t-shirts and the yardage of flannel.  Here is an example of the information I requested from you.

Size: Twin.  Style: Front only.  Squares:12-inch.  Notes: Your hair looks nice.

So,  here's how I worked it out.

A Twin blanket is approximately 68"x86" (googled it).  Since we want 12x12 squares, we're going to do a little division.  Don't be scared.  Open up your calculator on your computer, or use your phone.  For the width: 68/12 = 5.666667     For the length: 86/12 = 7.1666667

Clearly, we're not going to cut .16666667ths of a square out, so you've got to round.  And you can go either way.  You could make this blanket 5 squares by 7 squares (rounding down), or 6 x 8 (rounding up) or anything in between.  I like to be difficult, so I would probably suggest going 6x7.  

You could count them, or you could multiply 6x7.
Either way, there's 42 squares here.
Except they're more like rectangles.
Just go with me here.

 At this point, as the picture states, you've got a need for 42 squares.  Assuming you're using regular-sized shirts, you can get at least 2 squares out of each shirt, so you need 21 shirts.  If you go with extra extra large shirts, you may need less.  But you'll need no more than 21 shirts.  Tada!

Now for the Flannel: You're going to need enough flannel to cut out the same amount of squares, in our case, (42) 12x12 inch squares.  Here's how I figure this out.  Fabric is generally 44 inches wide.  So we can fit 3 squares across a swath of fabric, like so:

<----------------------- 44 inches this way ------------------------>

Yes, there is some left over, but thats just the ugly truth of it.  Now, you'll need enough for all the squares, as I said before, so you take the number of squares you need, divided by the number you can fit across the fabric.  We've got: 42/3 = 14.  It won't always work out pretty like this.  Just round up.  So we need to make 14 rows of these 3 blocks, which means 14 feet, since each of our squares are 1 foot long.  And there you have it.  14 feet of flannel (which is 14/3 = 4.66667 yards)  

This can be expensive, so I would suggest trying to find a sheet 1 size larger than the size of blanket you're making.  That'll be large enough.  So for this twin, I would grab a double sheet set, and use the fitted for the backing and the flat for the back of the quilt.  Just cut the elastic out of the fitted sheet first, being careful to only cut the edges.  Should work great.

 And there you have it.  That is how you figure out how many squares you need.  Did I make it complicated enough?  Are you ready for more?  Just say the word, and we'll move along to the cutting.  We're going to get through this today, I promise.  Handsome made it a point to tell me he's taken all of his blankets to the part-time station, and he doesn't have any blankets at the full-time station, and he's sleeping there tonight soo.... I'd better get my butt in gear.  Be back in a little bit to keep moving on this.

Word,

TFW