“Mom and Dad, can you guys just take these two bags to Goodwill?” he said while we packed up his house in Waco just before graduation.

We agreed, loaded them in the moving truck, and hauled everything to a storage facility in San Marcos. I kept the two white trash bags, though, a bit skeptical about what he’d chosen to give away.

Call it a mother’s intuition, call it a lingering grief over college graduation, or call it hoarding, one of those bags I chose to hold back contained freshly washed and neatly folded t-shirts representing major milestones and special occasions in my biggest kiddo’s life. There was no way I could bring myself to throw them in the Goodwill receptacle.

Robert was now the skeptical one. Were we really going to transport all of those t-shirts back to Massachusetts in our already-pushing-fifty-pound suitcases? (Though he did find some treasures for himself in the other bag. Button down dress shirts? Those were keepers for sure.)

I explained that there are companies that make quilts out of t-shirts, and that Kory’s birthday was next month. This bit of information got him more on board with my vision, and can I just say how thankful I am for a husband who doesn’t squash my seemingly outlandish and almost always inconvenient ideas? 

Back at home, I mentioned the t-shirts to my friend, Betsy, and that I was thinking of sending them off to be made into a quilt. To which she said that she was in the process of making TWO t-shirt quilts for a couple of her kids and that I could definitely make it myself.

Of course Betsy was currently making two t-shirt quilts. What is she ever not doing?

I’ve written about Betsy a lot here. She’s the one who talks me into things like harrowing backpacking trips in the White Mountains, Olympic-length Triathlons, and half-marathon trail races. Challenging things. Epic things. Death-defying things.

I view quilt-making in those categories, but once again she convinced me.

“I’ll help you,” she said.  And she did.  We consulted back and forth with picture texts, and she walked me through the process.
One especially challenging part was that I had loaned all of my sewing tools to my friend Isabelle, who led a breakout session on sewing at our women’s retreat in April. She had everything except my machine, and just happened to be on a camping trip the weekend I decided to start this project. Somehow I found some not-so-good pins, a pair of not-very-sharp scissors, and some poster board scraps I could use for making not-very-straight-patterns.

It was kinda like sewing back in the Little House on the Prairie days, except for my electric sewing machine and iron.

There’s just really not much time for projects like this in my current season of life (not convinced there ever will be), but I was able to work on it here and there for a couple of weeks until it was finished. As you can see, it took up quite a bit of floor space (dining room table space, too), and so it required everyone living here to live around the quilt – eating, walking, watching movies. Not always an easy task.

My goal for finishing was Monday, June 26, and I actually finished up on Sunday night the 25th. This left me plenty on time on Monday morning to get it wrapped and boxed and shipped off to the birthday boy who would turn 22 in Texas on the Thursday the 29th.

This is probably where I should tell you how much I love the post office. Stamps, and boxes, and the same friendly postal clerk I’ve been visiting ever since I was pregnant with Kayla – though I also love the automated postal kiosk when the line is too long. Speaking of, I also love this Jane Austen quote from Emma:

“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.– “The regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”

I completely agree, Jane!

I remain totally enamored with fact that I can put a stamp on something and then someone else will deliver it to a person I care about – even someone very far away. Like, right to their home or dorm mailbox or summer camp outpost. I love imagining the other person’s delight upon receiving my letter or care package (because, of course), and I adore finding just the right little surprises to enclose. Getting a note back from them? Well, that’s just icing on my postal system dream cake.

Did you know you can put an address and stamps on a potato and send it to your cousin in Texas because sending potatoes is an inside joke between the two of you from back in your Webkinz days? Well, you can. And just imagine the delight of finding a potato from Amherst, Massachusetts in your Austin, TX mailbox!

But this is not a post about post…or potatoes.

Robert agreed to snap a picture before I boxed it up that Monday, and I had to stand on our picnic table to display the entire thing, It felt so good to have accomplished this project myself. (Thanks, Betsy!)

Mission trips, sports teams, fraternity events, Pine Cove summers, favorite Texas hangouts, memories of home in Massachusetts, Young Life in his high school years, Baylor college days, and more. Leaving him behind in Texas was hard, and this may have been just the task I needed to bring about some peace with that.
For anyone interested, I’m going to post more pics and instructions below. There are several Youtube video tutorials about t-shirt quilts, as well as websites listing written instructions, but I found that many of them left out steps I was stumped over. That’s when Betsy’s texts and photos were a lifesaver.

If you are a real quilter, I’m sure you will cringe at the photos and instructions below.  There was nothing precise about what I did, but somehow it turned out fairly straight, and my “machine quilting” at the end will at least prevent the batting from shifting around too much. Read more at your own risk.

1. I chose 20 t-shirts so that I could create a quilt that had five shirts vertical by four shirts horizontal. You could do more or less. This one began to feel fairly large by the end, but I ended up really liking the size.

I cut a 15 x 15 inch piece of posterboard to use as my pattern and template for cutting out the desired logo portion of each t-shirt

2. You’ll need to purchase fusible interfacing. It’s crucial for giving the t-shirts a bit of sturdiness and helping them stay in almost-perfect squares. I cut 15 x 15 pieces of the interfacing and ironed it on the back of each t-shirt square.

3. Arrange the t-shirts in a pattern you like. For Kory’s quilt, I tried to separate colors. He had several greys, blues, and reds that I tried to keep interspersed as much as possible. This is when floorspace becomes very helpful.

4. Cut strips of fabric to be borders between the columns and rows of your shirts. My strips were 3 inches wide. You could definitely cut thinner strips, but these wider ones were easy to pin and sew. As you can see, I used the posterboard again to create a pattern for my strips. Choose a color that complements your t-shirt colors. This can be a bit tricky, and I am not the best color-chooser, so I Googled images of t-shirt quilts and found a color combination I liked (grey and black) and copied it. I am really good at copying.

5. This is the step I was stumped by. I thought, at first, I would cut long vertical strips, but then how would I get the short horizontal pieces underneath each shirt in place? I couldn’t find any specific instructions, and my strategic sewing mental faculties were failing me. Betsy said she had done the shorter strips first, vertically between each t-shirt on a horizontal row and then long horizontal strips underneath the row of t-shirts.  Here are a few photos to try and demonstrate.

 

 

6. Next, you’ll need to cut long fabric strips for the outer border. Just measure, cut, and sew in the same manner as above. The corners are a bit tricky, so cut your strips longer than they need to be and fold each end into a 45 degree-ish angle until you’ve squared off the corner. Pin and sew. (I know there is a very precise way of doing this for real quilts, but I kinda just went with intuition here.)

7. After all borders are attached and corners are squared, you’ll want to add some type of batting between the front and back of the quilt. I chose an 80% cotton/20% polyester fill, because cotton breathes so well, and I have experience sleeping under an all polyester-fill comforter at my dad’s house. It gets hot and uncomfortable after a while. Cotton batting is more expensive than polyester, but it was worth it to me. Measure the length and width of your finished top before buying the batting. You can buy it by the yard or in packages of pre-cut sizes.

8. Choose a fabric for the back and what will also end up being another border for the front. I chose black with a corresponding pattern to the grey I used on the front. I ended up needing about 7 or 8 yards. I cut that length in half and sewed the pieces together in order to have a piece large enough to cover the back with about 4 inches of border.  This is because I planned to wrap the black fabric around to the front to create a black edge for my grey border.

9. Turn the quilt over to the front. Fold the black fabric in toward the front of the quilt one time (about an inch) and iron it in place. Fold it in once more and iron again. Create 45 degree angles again at the corners, squaring them off. Iron and pin. Pin along the edges of this border about every 2-3 inches. This will help ensure that you create a straight edge and nice corners.

I sewed around this border twice. Once at the very edge of the quilt and once near where the black fabric meets the grey fabric – but on the black fabric.

9. Another thing I was stumped about was how to “quilt” the quilt.  Quilting is making the tiny stitches all over the quilt that secures the inside batting and creates beautiful patterns.  It’s sort of what makes a quilt a quilt, but I had no time for such detailed endeavors.

This is what I did instead:I used the most decorative stitch my sewing machine is capable of (which is not very decorative) and sewed a line all though the middle of each front grey strip. This created a sort of checkerboard pattern on the back. (I used grey thread here, so that it wouldn’t show on the front, but would show on the back.) Then I decided that might not be sufficient to keep the batting in place, and so I sewed another grey decorative stitch right through the middle of each t-shirt hortizontally, but not meeting the line on the grey strips, making more of a rectangular looking checkerboard. At least it was a consistent pattern and not awful to look at.

A lint roller was a great tool for getting off all of the excess threads and particles picked up from the floor and dining room table.

I think that’s about it. Let me know if you decide to dive into this project at your house. I’d love to see your final product.