My mother has been making quilts for everyone in the family during the pandemic and beyond. I asked her if she wanted to make a quilt with me and she said, “Sure.” My idea was to buy men’s shirts at local thrift stores, especially ones that were stained or branded with an employer’s logo, and turn them into a patchwork quilt.
First step was to wash them, and then I cut the various pieces from the shirts, and starched and ironed the pieces to come up with this stack of fabric.
When my mother came out the first time to help me get started with cutting the fabric, she said that I needed to find some shirts with a darker color value. I found these three while we were on our trip.
She supervised my cutting the first two shirts into strips, and then she left me to the cutting on my own. The rotary cutter and cutting mat make the job SO MUCH EASIER. However, this part of the projects took about 10 hours, or maybe more.
Here are all the finished strips.
There are a couple shirts, a solid mint green and a blue and white stripe, that aren’t shown here that will be in the finished quilt. The overall color scheme is primarily blue (because blue men’s shirts are easy to find) with greens, yellows, blacks, and whites.
Next is the sewing part where my mom is invaluable. I will be the ironer because that suits my skill level.
More to come. I’m super excited to see how it turns out!
BTW, I am recycling all of the scraps from these shirts because this is meant to be a recycling project where old clothes stay out of the landfill.
Cathy At Home on the River 