Things You'll Need:
- Shirt
- Scissors
- Rotary Mat
- Rotary Cutter
- Ruler
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Step 1
Oh, I know, it's not like you are going to get yards and yards of fabric from a shirt that you find in a thrift shop - or even one you find in your closet.
You may get yards and yards from a big, full skirt or a long dress. But not from a shirt.
However, I was surprised to see how much usable fabric you can get from one shirt.
This was a men's medium shirt, 100% cotton and in pretty good shape.
Below is the process I followed to get as much fabric as I could from the shirt. True a few of the pieces are only 2 1/2 inches wide, but if you need 2 inch square patches, it is perfect.
The back, fronts and sleeves have some fairly substantial pieces in them that can easily be cut into larger squares, triangles or other shapes for your quilt.
Once you have the shirt, it's time to start looking at it and scope out a plan to cut it apart.
The first thing I did was to wash and iron the shirt. -
Step 2
The next step was to carefully remove the buttons from the shirt.
By cutting the thread on the back, you can pull the thread and button out at the same time. -
Step 3
Next was to cut the collar from the shirt. I used scissors and cut both sides of the seam.
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Step 4
Once the collar was off, I cut around the outside in order to remove the interfacing and separate the pieces.
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Step 5
The next step was to cut the ends of the sleeves off.
My rotary cutter made easy work of this task. -
Step 6
Next was to cut the side seams of the shirt.
Using scissors seemed to be the easiest way to accomplish this. -
Step 7
Next I folded the shirt and lined up the bottom edges in order to cut the finishing seam away.
I was able to do this with a rotary cutter and ruler. -
Step 8
Next I folded the sleeves inside the shirt and cut off the seam that attached the sleeve to the shirt.
Then the sleeves were free of the shirt and they had no seams in them - just plain fabric. -
Step 9
Next I cut the yoke of the shirt away from the front.
In order to get it completely free, I needed to cut on both sides of the seam. -
Step 10
Next it was time to remove the button holes.
Using my rotary cutter, I cut as close to the button holes as I could. It took two swipes to get all of the stitching out. -
Step 11
Once the button holes were removed, I cut the overcast seams from the fabric on the other front side of the shirt.
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Step 12
Next I cut the final seam holding the yoke to the back of the shirt. This required cuts on both sides of the seams.
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Step 13
Then I cut the stitches holding the pocket to the front of the shirt, and trimmed away the seam allowances.
I decided to cut them rather than press them. -
Step 14
These are the pieces of the shirt that are now usable fabric:
* 21 1/2 by 24 inch back of the shirt
* 6 inch by 14 inch sleeves
* 3 inch by 18 inch yokes
* 8 inch by 24 inch front
* 12 inch by 24 inch front (this was the button side of the shirt)
* 2 1/2 inch by 24 inch strip from the front of the shirt (this was left after the button holes were cut)
* pocket
* 5 buttons
