26 March, 2021

Life is Good, Times Two!

Many of you have probably made a T-shirt quilt or two. Not me. A friend from church asked me late last fall if I would make a quilt from his wife's T-shirts as a tangible memory of her. We all loved Judy at church; she passed away almost two years ago after an awful battle with ALS. "Sure" I said, immediately without hesitating; he indicated that he had all of the shirts bundled up together and we agreed that sometime after Christmas I would get started. Quiltkeemosabe offered to help me, that was reassuring as I felt that I might be dipping a toe in charted waters. Well, a few weeks ago he brought the big bag of shirts to church for me to look at. "I was wondering", he said, "if maybe these couldn't become TWO quilts, one for each daughter". I smiled at the thought, "sure", was my response. Never mind that I'd never done one before and really didn't know were to begin. I sorted through the T-shirts the next morning, they're ALL Life is Good and there were 29 shirts! Definitely there was enough for two quilts! Gleaning all that I could from various T-shirt quilt making sources I set to work stabilizing the shirts fronts and other usable shirt parts before cutting them apart. I had a plan, each shirt would contain 20 blocks: 14 shirts fronts on one and 15 on the other, I decided to use plain backs for the alternate blocks. I carefully cut out sleeves for cornerstones and logos from the back necks, where I could. I had plenty of shot cotton for the sashing and borders. After a week and a half of working on nothing else, at every chance I got, I finally have two completed tops (and a huge bag full of shirt parts and pieces)!
And I thought that I had a lot of Life is Good shirts! My collection is only about half this size. I will pick up the backing fabric this weekend, I'm using the same print but in two different colorways, see below; one with a white background and the other with yellow. 
This backing, with its happy and inspiring words of affirmation are wonderful tributes to Judy and her always cheerful personality. Wish me luck getting these quilted up and off to Quiltkeemosabe in short order, she's going to bind them and attach dedication labels that she'll design, with help from Judy's husband, and machine embroider. He was hoping to have them ready to ship to his daughters in time for the second anniversary of their mother's death (mid-May). Can you imagine being a daughter and receiving one of these?! I get choked up just thinking about it. 

Life is Good!
It really, really is!!

6 comments:

Ramona said...

What a wonderful gift you have blessed your friend's husband and daughters with. These quilts will be treasured for years to come.

Janet O. said...

This is a lovely thing you are doing for this family. T-shirt quilts are not the most fun to make, but the memories they hold for the recipients (especially in a case like this) are priceless. Kudos to you!
And I wonder how I have ended up with absolutely no "Life is Good" t-shirts?

cityquilter grace said...

what a ginormous labor of love and such keepsakes for these daughters....

Quiltdivajulie said...

What a priceless gift of your abilities! The quilts will be loved beyond measure.

patty a. said...

The t-shirt tops came out wonderful! Great job for your first try! They will be a wonderful memory for the daughters. T-shirts quilts are one of my favorite type of quilts to make.

Tanya said...

What a wonderful message and gift of love you are giving back to this family. I'll bet that there are going to be some tears of joy when the daughters get these quilts!