How I spent my summer non-vacation

Since school let out for both my husband and son a little over 9 weeks ago, I was home alone for 5 of those weeks. I had to work while they were busy being camp counselors or driving out west for our vacation (I flew out on July 4th and we all drove back home together, after our tour of Oregon). When I wasn't at work I was busy working on a graduation present for the youngest son of a very good friend of mine. She sent me a box of her son's favorite t-shirts from middle and high school and I turned them into this:
His high school colors are orange and black, so those were the colors I used for the background. I began cutting apart the t-shirts in very late June, about a week before I left home. In that week I fused the stabilizer onto the back and cut the blocks to size, deciding on a final layout. I didn't do any sewing until after our return on July 21. This morning I mailed it off to him. It took a total of 3 weeks (just 21 days!) to sew the top together, quilt it, and bind it. It certainly helped to have my family gone 12 of those days.

This is only my second t-shirt quilt (the first was done for last year's Brenda Novak auction) and now I'm feeling extremely comfortable with the process. I don't do anything fancy. A simple layout against a solid background so that the shirts get all of the attention. The quilting is a medium-scale curvy meander across the whole surface.
I have another box of t-shirts from another friend ready for me to start cutting. But this time I'm getting paid for my time and materials. I'm not exactly ready to turn this into a business, but doing one or two of these a year would be perfect for subsidizing my fabric habit.

Comments

  1. ChristineSeptember 2, 2012 at 8:37 PM

    SO COOL!!! I love how this came out. I bet he loves it. And I hate to plant that seed in your head... but it would make an awesome quilt for him to take to college. gulp!

    ReplyDelete
  2. PhylSeptember 7, 2012 at 8:35 PM

    Thanks! Believe it or not, my kid wants to live at home and go to college locally. Given the expense of college these days, I don't really object. So at the moment, no urgency to make one for the teen. Whew!

    ReplyDelete

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