Still, I love t-shirts. I always have and always will. I'd assembled quite a collection -- including some rad tees from fun gigs in my twenties, a couple of very special teeny shirts from when I was a child, a few delightfully embarrasing ones (NKOTB concert tee November 1990 - what up?), and a lot of memories.
So many of my t-shirts reminded me of the people in my life - a David Letterman tee from a family trip to New York, a shirt screenprinted for me by a wonderful ex-boyfriend, one from a friend's newly formed record company, a shirt from an art show that represents another friend's graphic design, and a concert tee from the first show I ever went to with a friend and without my parents (Jesus Jones, hilariously, in 1991), to name but a few. Looking at them all at once, it became apparent that much of my life was mapped in this pile of shirts.
I asked a few close friends and family to contribute to my collection. I wanted the shirt that they no longer wore, but that held some meaning and memories for them. I put them all together in a giant two-sided quilt that I completed in the summer of 2008.
It's amazingly warm and weirdly stretchy -- and I just love it!
Tip time! It was a pain in the butt to sew since both sides were stretchy - If I've inspired you to give it a go, I'd recommend doing it single sided with a cotton or quilting fabric backing.
Anyway, my good friend Jeff made me promise that he could have my quilt when I die (creepy, dude!), so this summer I decided to make one for him as a Christmas gift (admittedly partially so he wouldn't kill me off). I enlisted my husband to donate some of his own well-loved (read: worn out) t-shirts. This version was all band/concert shirts and all are meaningful to the three of us - artists my husband and Jeff bonded over when they first became friends and shows we've seen together over the years.
See? Now I'm so glad I kept all those shirts...
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