Custom T-Shirt Quilt

My latest project, completed!

This was a SURPRISE quilt done for a gentlemen who plays lead (guitar) in a blues band.  The T-Shirts are from many of the music festivals he's participated in.  As their family was getting ready to move, his wife wanted to 'just do something' with the t-shirts (probably toss them) but he really wanted to keep them.  So, she had me make a quilt out of his t-shirts - making something useful out of them, while still keeping them for sentimental purposes.

It's a VERY custom quilt, one of a kind for sure. 

 

Quilt top - no borders and no quilting yet , just the t-shirts put together in blocks.

The FEATURE shirts:

- the top t-shirt was too big to cut into a diamond - I needed a BIG square to get it all.

- the 2nd shirt was the shirt he wore on the cover of his first CD.  This is the actual shirt, complete with collar, buttons and faux pocket.  This shirt is 3-D!  It was fun to figure out how to include this important part of his musical history!

 

The completed quilt - with borders, quilting and binding - all the details in place!

 

The CD Cover shirt

 

An example of the custom quilting done on the quilt - music notes, music staffs, treble and bass clefs, etc.

There are lots of fun details that the family has been finding as they have looked over this quilt (it was given on Father's Day)!  The buttons from the CD Cover shirt are used in the corners of the outside borders, there are guitars quilted in the sashes around the blocks and in the big corner stones on the borders, fabric from the t-shirts was also used to make the corner stones around each of the blocks, etc. 

It was a blast to do!  It was a lot of fun to try to make this a real memory piece for the family - something that HE would enjoy and that they could all look at as a piece of their history for years to come.

I definitely learned a lot doing this quilt and I'm so glad to have been able to participate in this kind of project.  It's very special for someone to trust you with their memories like this!!  It's a very nice addition to my 'quilt portfolio'.