Tee shirt weather of a different kind!

It certainly has been colder than I can ever remember, and so not tee shirt weather but tee shirts have been part of my daily activities for a while now.  No, not wearing them - sewing them!  You see,  I have a very dear friend that has a job that takes her to magical places.  International as well as domestic.  I live vicariously through her and love to hear her stories about all these wondrous places.  Needless to say, she has accumulated a large number of tee shirts from her travels.  We worked together for 10 years and so she heard me regaling about all my quilting activities so it was only natural that she approached me about turning her tee shirts into a quilt. 

At that time I had one in the works for myself.  It was the first tee shirt quilt for me and although I had not worked on it for a while, I thought I would enjoy making one for her as well.  It took some time to work out the colors and layout.  All of these shirts came from Hard Rock Cafes.  We laid out the shirts and discussed colors she wanted for background, borders and backing.  One of the difficulties in doing this project was that I retired shortly after starting the quilt.  We made a lot of decisions over the phone or via text messages.  I would take pictures of potential fabrics while I was in the fabric store and text her for a yay or nay.  I took pictures of potential layouts as well for her opinion and approval.  Gotta love the technology!  Two situations that I had not planned on with the layout reared their ugly head early on.  One was that the graphics on the shirts were all different sizes.  The other was that only 10 of the 12 shirts had the location included within the graphic.  One of the things that she wanted was the location of the café with each shirt.  They all had the location on the front pockets though.  So, the two shirts that needed their location were paired with their pocket graphic.  It took a while to get a suitable layout with all the different sizes.  The background fabric had to be custom cut for each shirt.  It was truly a labor of love!  I had it quilted at my local quilt shop, Old City Quilts and they did a fabulous job.  The back of the quilt included all the other pocket graphics so it took some time to coordinate the back to the front so it was balanced.  Then it was bound.  It was delivered today!


 I folded it and packaged it in a pillow case that I made especially for her.  She loves flip flops! 

 
So, now I have come full circle - the original inspiration for the Hard Rock quilt was my tee shirt quilt which was still in pieces.  The Hard Rock quilt then became the inspiration to complete my quilt.  It is now quilted and just needs to be bound.  The binding is made so I am really close!  And, it now has a name - BTDT (Been there, done that, got the tee shirt).   These tee shirts were earned during a variety of events including department picnics, Corporate walks for MS, and bicycle events from the Princeton Freewheeler bike club events.  I was a lot younger then, as you can see, some of the shirts are from 1988!  I was able to do long distance bike rides then, 25milers were my favorite but I also did one 50 miler (1 was enough for me!).  All memorable events with wonderful friends. 

 

The backing I choose was appropriate for the times - at least I think so - since it represents some of my "wild and crazy days"! 

 

So, one more UFO can be crossed off the list!  I have several many more to work on, but now I am on a roll and have some large pieces out of the way.  Working on a few smaller projects in between these larger ones seems to be the strategy that works for me, at least at this point in time!  Let's see what's next......