Do I Have to Cut My Own T-shirts?

Do I Have to Cut My Own T-shirts for a Quilt?

If you’re here, you probably saw another company asking you to cut your T-shirts and you thought… ah… no. Perhaps that was Project Repat?

Good instinct to stop and say “NO!” Because no, you do not have to cut your own T-shirts. And you shouldn’t be asked to.

Why Do Some Companies Ask You to Cut Your Own T-shirts?

It saves them money.

If you cut your own T-shirts:

• They don’t have to spend time doing it
• They don’t need skilled labor for that step
• They don’t have to deal with the leftover scraps

That’s less work and less cost on their end.

Does it save you money? Generally, no. You’re still paying for the quilt. You’re just doing part of the work yourself before you send it in.

It’s not about making your T-shirt quilt better. It’s about making their process cheaper and easier.

Should You Cut Your Own T-shirts Before Sending Them?

No. You’re not hiring a T-shirt quilt company to do part of the job. You’re hiring them to do the whole thing.

Cutting T-shirts isn’t a small step you can just knock out in a few minutes. It’s one of the most important parts of the entire process. If it’s done wrong, it creates problems that can’t always be fixed cleanly later.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Most people don’t have the right tools
• Most people don’t know how T-shirt fabric behaves
• Most people don’t realize how exact the cutting needs to be

Things can go sideways quickly.

Compare Project Repat, Campus Quilts and Too Cool T-shirt Quilts here.

What Happens If You Cut T-shirts Wrong for a Quilt?

We see it all the time. Blocks come in:

• Misshapen
• Slightly stretched or shrunk
• Not square or rectangular anymore
• Cut too close to the design
• With uneven, jagged edges

T-shirt material moves when you cut it. Without the right tools, it’s almost impossible to keep everything straight and consistent.

And when the edges aren’t straight, we can’t just sew them together and hope for the best. Everything has to line up and be exact.

So now instead of starting fresh, we’re fixing problems first.

Do Quilt Companies Cut the T-shirts for You?

They should. Your T-shirt quilt maker should handle the entire process, start to finish. That includes cutting.

When we cut your T-shirts:

• We use plexiglass templates to get clean, straight edges every time
• We size each block based on the graphic, not a fixed size block
• We make sure the design fits the block instead of cutting it off to match a system

Your T-shirts don’t get forced into a template. Your quilt is built around the graphics on your T-shirts. We won’t crop off a graphic.

That’s a completely different approach from companies that require pre-cut pieces.

Planning a T-shirt quilt?
Here are step-by-step directions for ordering your Too Cool T-shirt quilt.

Already Cut Your T-shirts?

You’re not the only one.

A lot of people start cutting because they think they’re supposed to, then realize they aren’t cut out for it or hate cutting off part of a design. Other times, they’re trying to save a little on shipping.

We can still use pre-cut T-shirts. But if we need to adjust or fix them so they work in your quilt, there’s an additional charge per T-shirt.

If that’s where you’re at, click here. This article will help.

Your Takeaway

You don’t have to cut your own T-shirts for a quilt.

And if a company is asking you to do it, it’s worth asking why. Because your T-shirt quilt maker should be doing all the work for you.

Want to learn more about T-shirt quilts? Visit our Learning Center.
We have over 200 articles about all aspects of T-shirt quilts.