People search t-shirt quilt planner when the cloth is already printed — concert tours, sports kits, baby onesies — and the job is a sewable grid. Quiltler is that job in the studio: photo fabrics at true scale, a layout, yardage from pieces. It is not a heat-press service. Mixed garments and photos of people belong with memory quilt planner. Faceted picture quilts are photo quilt maker. Stash photography in general is the quilt fabric stash app.
On this page
What this page actually plans
- Photograph the shirt, not a guess. Crop the graphic. Design at print scale.
- A grid of rectangles. Most t-shirt quilts are blocks of equal finished size with sashing.
- Finished size first. Twin, throw or wall — set inches in quilt layout software language.
- Two photos on free. Plan the two hardest shirts first, or subscribe for a full stack.
- FPP is optional. Shirt rectangles almost never need foundation paper piecing; keep the mention honest for sharp add-on blocks.
How Quiltler treats a t-shirt
A t-shirt is stretchy knit with a graphic. Quiltler does not stabilize the knit for you — that is still fusible or interfacing on the table. What the studio does is show the graphic at the size you will cut, inside a layout whose finished inches you can trust. Photograph on a flat table, square to the camera.
Sashing between shirts is the same sashing as any patchwork quilt. Use the quilt sashing planner if the strips are the design. Borders around a memory grid behave like any border.
Yardage of extra quilting cotton (sashing, borders, backing) still follows pieces plus the backing calculator. The shirts themselves are ‘fabric you already own.’
T-shirt versus photo quilt versus memory
Photo quilt maker facets a picture into sewable polygons. A t-shirt quilt keeps each graphic as a rectangle. Do not pick the photo tool hoping it will ‘make shirts.’
Memory quilt planner is for mixed clothing and scanned photos as prints — not only tees. If every block is a shirt, stay here.
Size and free limits
A throw of twelve shirts is a different quilt from a king of forty. Set size the way throw quilt designer and queen quilt designer teach: inches first.
Free two fabrics means two photographed shirts plus solids. That is enough to prove the grid. A forty-shirt quilt wants a subscription for the library of prints. One saved quilt should be the layout you will sew. Knit still needs interfacing at the iron. The studio will not stretch the jersey for you. Sashing in a quiet cotton often saves a loud graphic field. Foundation paper piecing is almost never the right tool for a t-shirt rectangle.
Write the finished inches down, then open the matching backing, binding or batting answer if that size has one. Those pages do not replace the canvas: they cover the rectangle jobs. The pieced top is still counted in the studio. If one unit needs foundation paper piecing, the pack can print sheets after you subscribe; a nine-patch field does not. Keep the free limit in mind: one saved quilt and two photographed fabrics, plus solids, is enough to prove the plan before you cut a stack the shop will not take back.
Open the studio, photograph two shirts, and drop them on a 50×65 throw. If the graphics crop wrong, you found out before the rotary cutter.