Like all quilters, I’ve been told that I should only use good 100% quilting cotton fabrics. Do I always listen to what I’ve been told? Absolutely not. Neither should you. Although I typically use 100% cotton fabrics, I do from time to time use non-traditional fabrics for quilting such as shirts.
On average I go through my shirt closet once a year searching for shirts I haven’t worn for eight months or more. My reasoning is that if I haven’t worn them in that period of time, I’ll probably not wear them again and it’s time to repurpose or find them a new home.
The inspiration for this quilt came while visiting my friends Tom and Lucien in Lewis, Delaware.
Lucien, a quilter, had a small stack of 4” squares that looked like they were cut from shirt fabric. I did not ask about the origin of the stack, but I also never forgot what I saw.
A while after I got home from my vacation, I went looking for the shirts that I sorted to donate or to throw away, depending on their condition. Remembering what I saw at Lucien’s and looking at all the shirts, I came up with a plan.
I started by removing all the buttons and stored them in a container. Then I sorted the shirts into two piles: one pile of solid coloured fabrics, the second, with printed patterns.
Read more in our Issue 50.
Download the PDF pattern now.
Designed by Paul Leger
www.paullegerquilts.com
