My husband and I differ in the amount of closet space we need. Here’s a quick run-down.

Every time I purge my “half” of the closet and get rid of clothing, it results in my husband appropriating the extra space for himself. I am starting to wonder if leaving piles of decoy clothing around would be helpful in case I ever need more space!

The thing that I don’t understand is that a disproportionate amount of those clothes are graphic tees, sports t-shirts, jerseys or free tees from things like wing eating challenges. Things he’s not ever going to give up, but also does not really wear. Ack! They sit there, taking up space – and more importantly, being messy – since other wearable tees are mixed in with them. Not that I’m a perfectionist or anything – but I love me a tidy closet!

Thankfully, I was able to convince him we were able to compromise and he let me chop some of them up into a t-shirt quilt. #ifyoucantbeatthem #jointhem We managed to pare the pile down by 20 tees. That’s 14″ less clothing piled on our shelves (I know, because I just measured a stack.) Makes me feel even better about this project.  But, of course, it’s been almost 2 years since I took these photos and we’ve accumulated a full closet again.  Turns out I should have made him king-sized quilt instead of only a twin!

If you might possibly have the same shared-closet predicament in your family dynamics *ahem-yes?* I would recommend that this is definitely the way to go! It’s been our go-to downstairs basement blanket ever since it was finished. I think maybe it was my first ever “real” quilt finish. At least, it is the first-quilt I am most proud of. The photoshoot was fun too. There’s a great park in Oakville by the waterfront that has these amazing life-size moose and wolf statues. #verymanly for our manly t-shirt quilt!

I think I started this project almost 4 years ago now. I found a nice t-shirt quilt tutorial on Goose Tracks Quilts. It is simple, without drawings or photos, and well written. Right down to a link to finding your fabric yardage. The design is a straight-forward and beginner friendly t-shirt quilt with same-sized blocks and simple sashing. Appealing to my sense of symmetry and order! I pieced a few of the blocks together to include the front and back of the tee together. And added in some important patches on the back.

The hardest part about this quilt was quilting it on my old budget basic machine. My non-quilty self decided to use a heavy blanket for the batting and my husband wanted to back it in baby-wale corduroy “that reminded him of a Scottish tartan”. Add the weight of the tee’s, and the interfacing you need to keep them from stretching. It’s a wonder my arms didnt’ fall off! Right – and then after that I pieced the t-shirt leftovers together for binding… *oof* #novicequilter!

In the end, the heaviness is so nice to cozy up under,  And I’m glad we got to keep some fun memory t-shirts mixed in with the crazy graphic tee’s. His U2 concert tees, designs he made for work and shirts we designed and inkjet ironed-on. Oh, and one of the five epic basketball jersey we naively decided to double-layer applique lettering on for a basketball tournament (What was I thinking? Well, we were dating… Moving on!) Now these memories are preserved as a quilt we use almost everyday. I should probably add a label.

 I wanna know! What has been your favorite quilt project?

Disclaimer: My inadvertent throwing Matt under the bus has been fully approved by the spouse in question. 🙂