Making a T-Shirt Blanket

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Making a T-Shirt Blanket

July 24, 2020

It's hard to come up with a graduation gift more sentimental than a t-shirt blanket made up of beloved shirts that your child wore from their childhood through high school years. And there are so many themes for blankets. I did a drill team theme mixed with high school t-shirts for my daughter, and the latest one was made for our 2020 graduate. He wanted a Kansas City "hometown teams" theme. To him that meant Chiefs football, Royals baseball and KU basketball. He couldn't have been happier with the end product.

It all begins with saving. Not hoarding - no don't let anyone call it that! I have had a bag of t-shirts hidden in my son's closet since he started playing sports. I saved his jerseys and every professional team t-shirt he wore as well as the "Going to State" golf team shirt in high school.

Now to be clear, I am making him two blankets. The hometown team blanket is the size of a throw. He is excited to take this to college. But he will also get a larger queen-size memory quilt later with a more detailed remembrance of his life through high school. It will include family trip t-shirts, his own team jerseys, and many other special ones including golf shirts with logos.

After collecting all the shirts, I purchased a really soft plush throw from Target. I laid out the t-shirts on the throw and figured out what design looks the best color-wise. The great thing is that you can choose any size throw! I got an oversized one.

For my daughter's t-shirt quilt, it wasn't actually quilted, and this is another option. The t-shirt squares were cut out and sewn together and that whole piece was sewn onto the plush throw.

I have to say that the t-shirt throw blanket I had made this time WAS quilted and what a difference! It is much more substantial and it will have a much longer life than the t-shirt throw blanket that was not actually quilted.

This gift was a huge success and he's taking it to college! I highly recommend quilting it even though it's a throw size. He loves it. I will let you know how the memory quilt turns out when I have that made. But that's another blog post!