T-Shirt Blanket

Today friends I would like to share a very special blanket with you. I present the T-Shirt blanket! I am one of those people who has a hard time letting go of shirts, especially if there are good memories attached to them. After seeing these guys pop up all over Pinterest and knew I needed to make my own.

Wait Max, sit there and let me take your picture.

Since I'm so nice and kind, I thought I would share the steps I took and my recommendations with y'all! 

 -Save shirts that you find to have meaning to you or are from something special, like a trip or school event. 

-Take your time! This is big. I am very impatient and it was hard for me to really slow down because I just wanted to finish it. If you rush your blanket will end up sloppy. 

-Use a template. After looking at all your shirts, decide what size you wanna make the square tiles. These will have to be the same or the blanket won't turn out correctly. 

-Locate a rotatory cutter or sharp sewing scissors. Cotton shirts are difficult to cut. Trace your template on to the shirt and cut along those lines.

-After you cut all the squares, start laying them out and figuring out where you want each one to go. Once you have a piece for each shirt, start pinning them into rows. Now sew them together.
 
-Once you have sewed all the squares together you will need to decide what kind of material you want to put on the back. I have heard of people using double the amount of t-shirts and using that as the back. For my blanket I choose to use a flat bed sheet. My mom picked up a full sheet from Walmart that had lots of colors to match my shirts. I like the feeling of the sheet because it is cool and I tend to always be warm. Good combo for me, but pick something that suits your needs. 

-Pin both sides together and sew. This explains itself. Again take your time!

-The last thing you need to do (what I finished today) "tack" it together. Tacking meaning sew the corners of the squares together and through the backing. That's the best I can explain that step. Sorry guys. 

And then I could get him off of it...

But I didn't mind because he was super cute.

Ta da!! All done. I started this project last Memorial Day, but soon realized I got myself into a big mess. Grandma to the rescue! She took almost the whole thing apart and resewed it together. When I sewed it the first time, I had trouble lining all the seems up and making it look nice and neat. My mom wanted it to look nice so it's something I could be proud of and keep for years. Needless to say, I'm very happy with the end result!

Now this blanket needs to be washed before I can take it back to curl up with at school. But I might take a nap with it first. Mhmmm tempting.....  

Ashlyn