Just for ME! {Memory T-Shirt Quilt}

 It feels like a rarity, but I finally completed a project for myself! The last time I visited my parents they shoved a trash bag full of random "treasures" into the back of my van...I peaked in, put it in the attic and forgot about it. Then last year I decided I had to get rid of the excess, which caused me to pull out my overflowing t-shirt drawer and pile up the shirts that needed to be included in a t-shirt quilt. When emptying out the attic this fall, I came across the bag from my parents--it even included my Girl Scout uniform, which I decided to make into a NY State quilt block (seen on the bottom left corner--the green is the skirt, the white stripes are the uniform shirt, and the blue is part of a Girl Scout sweat shirt!)

The quilt includes shirts from elementary school, high school, volleyball, college, mission trips, Disney, family reunions, and vacations. This is a project I have wanted to complete for YEARS! Some of these shirts are over 20-30 years old!

I cut all of the shirts to 12.5" squares (or for the small blocks 6.5") and then added iron on stabilizer to the back of each block, then retrimmed the blocks. After deciding the layout of the blocks, I sewed the blocks into strips, then joined the strips--and make it sound really simple, but before I knew it I had the quilt top finished! I backed this quilt in a silly sushi flannel. I used clear thread on the top, and white quilting thread on the bottom. I quilted 1" spaced lines starting off a 1" square in the middle of the quilt, lining up the corner into the top/bottom/sides of the 1" square. I used white flannel for binding and actually hand stitched the binding down! I haven't hand sewn a binding in so long I can't even remember the last time I did!

I love the finished quilt!! I have a few points I need to go back and fix (puckers) but who knows if that will ever happen! I did wash the quilt to wash out the chalk I used to draw the quilting lines, one of the volleyball jerseys completely disintegrated in the washer/dryer...and one of the shirts had tie dye that I hadn't washed much before and it bled onto some of the other shirts! Ooops. Making a quilt for myself takes off some of the pressure of needing/wanting it to be perfect!

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