Shaina's surprise quilt

Shaina found my business via Facebook and contacted me. She and her husband have been married for over 15 years and now have children. She had been saving shirts for years, in the hope of someday finding a person who could turn them into a quilt! Some of the shirts she saved were from when they first started dating, so they were very sentimental. She wanted a quilt that the whole family could snuggle under on the couch and enjoy hearing stories about their parents' fun memories from over the years.

The collection of shirts included a pretty wide variety of colors (18 unique shades!) with a great mix of light and dark colors. Shaina didn't have any design preferences, so I decided to create a layout with as much contrast as possible to make each color "pop".

The shirts provided also included two sweatshirts, one of which was the "endless summer" cap-sleeve hoodie, featured in the middle of the quilt. This hoodie presented a bit of a challenge because the design "endless summer" was not printed directly on the sweatshirt, but rather on a separate piece of fabric which was then sewn onto the front of the sweatshirt, but only around the edges, so there was some movement between the two layers of fabric. Then, the kangaroo pocket was sewn on top of the loose top layer of fabric.

As I began quilting the spirals on each block (when I sew through all the shirt layers and batting to provide structure) the "endless summer" design wanted to shift and pucker. I had to think creatively to keep the shirt from bunching up too badly and looking weird when I finished the quilting. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the quilt block turned out, and I was able to find a way to preserve the original design of the sweatshirt.

Three of the shirts included had the main design on the back and a very small design on the left chest on the front. I cut out those small designs and turned them into patches, which I incorporated into the design of three quilt blocks.

Shaina gave the finished quilt to her husband as a Christmas gift. She sent me some pictures of her husband opening the quilt on Christmas morning. He had no idea she had been saving these shirts over the years and planning this project! It made me so happy to see his joy and hear how much he loved reminiscing when he saw the different shirts that Shaina had chosen for the quilt.

While I sewed, it was so fun for me to imagine the two of them falling in love over 15 years ago, knowing their kids will be staying cozy in these memories during family movie nights during the coming years.