T-Shirt Quilt

Taylor asked me to stitch a quilt from his collection of favorite T-shirts. Many of the fabrics were very worn so it seemed best to use iron-on interfacing on each one. Colby and I spent most of one day placing the images. We would place them, look at them and then move them around and do it again. We were trying to balance colors, shapes and bold vs.subtle imagery. We were working on the living room floor so I wanted to finish that portion in one session. (Made me miss that enormous Bath studio!) I fixed each t-shirt to a large backing fabric by ironing and then zig zag stitched with orange thead around each one. I bound the edge with a black knit fabric.The quilt took three days to finish.

Taylor gave me the T-shirts over a year ago. I had a hard time getting started.It seemed incongrous; the rough imagery and my notions about a quilt. We had my Grandmother Bonnie's quilt hanging in our home for years. It has very regular, even shapes and was hand quited in a geometic pattern but both quilts were created to provide a soft, comforting object to wrap and keep warm someone dear.