Turning shirts into sweet memories

I am in the midst of building a new kind of quilt- Soccer jersey shirts are the fabric source along with a few soccer related T shirts. My friend Terry had promised her son that she would turn them into a quilt years ago, a promise she thought she would never get to fulfill. We are slowly seeing that promise come together, and it is rather exciting!

Day 1- I received the box of shirts, sealed years ago. First look was a bit scary and uncertain- many wrinkled decal numbers, worn fabric and many clay marked shirts. I sorted cotton and poly shirts into two piles and began to brainstorm.

Day 2 - Shopping for interfaceing- 5 packages of 15" x 3 yd lightweight fusible, spray starch, 12.5 square ruler and ball point needles. All shirts were ironed, using white paper to shield my ironing board from vinyl numbers/ decals. Spray starch helped to remove wrinkles.

using rotary cutter I cut out 13 x 15 inch pieces of interfacing and 7 x 8 squares (for smaller images). These were then ironed onto the wrong side of the shirts to stabilize the knit and isolate the images. I then rough cut around the interfacing and then using the wonderful 12.5 inch square ruler trimmed each to size. smaller trimed to 6.5 square.

Day 3 continued work of Day 2, tentative layout begins. I have also played with trims, patches and have left one shirt collar on for special effect. Worked on a few plain squares to use as base for applique of smallest shirt (the boy was 5) - intact and too cute to pass up.

Next will be piecing blocks together, adding extra trims, sandwiching and quilting then binding. I will post again soon.