NLP- T-shirt Quilt

As a high school student I was very involved in school athletics. I played on both my high school's girls soccer and lacrosse teams. As a result of four years of two sports I have a TON of t-shirts that are collecting dust in my closet. When I graduated high school my mom told me to throw out all of my t-shirts so I could start fresh in college. I couldn’t do it; the shirts held too much sentimental value. I argued with her, “... but mom, I wore this one when we went to states!” and “this one is from that summer season game where I broke my wrist!” I just could not bear to part with them, so I stuffed them in the back of my closet figuring I would do something with them later.

Well later is now. And the number of shirts has grown to include my college and post-grad events as well. I have been doing some research about what to do with them and have come across the idea of a t-shirt quilt. I will cut up the shirts and give them new life as a quilt that I can keep. This will also allow me to share my fond memories with future family members and kids.

In my research I have found that there are numerous companies to whom you can send your old shirts and they will design and create the quilt for you. Now, seeing that I have no sewing experience, this would appear to be the route to take. All I would have to do is box up the shirts and ship them off. As much as I would prefer to do that, I think that learning the skills associated with sewing and quilting will benefit me in the future. I plan to use my shirts, research, and other materials to craft an AMAZING quilt that I can enjoy for years to come.

Here are some images of different styles of t-shirt quilts. Many of these are basic, equal squares, but I am going to try and "funkify" my quilt to make it a bit more unique. I guess we’ll see how it goes...