Well, here it is in all its glory. The infamous T-shirt quilt of the first half-century of my life. So I have already blogged about the first square ... the second has white appliques on the red shirt and they are from the post office. The T-shirt was originally my mother's, then my sister had it, but I did work at the Vernon post office for one "Christmas rush" period a very long time ago. The white bear is my version of the Kermode bear, our school mascot in Terrace. The big lion on yellow is from our family trip to California when I was in high school ... San Diego Zoo. The top right white T-shirt with Kermodes on it is from my cheerleading days. (Yes, I was a high school cheerleader!)
The next row starts with a mouse (my personal mascot) and is personalized with my name. I love personalized things. Universal Studios is next ... again from the California trip. The navy one is Grad 78 and the green one at the end of the second row is from our family trip to Minitonas, Manitoba (my mom's birthplace) for the town's 80th anniversary, right after my graduation. The trip was hilarious, as Mom and I sat in the back seat (we were the kids) and Dad and my grandma Nickoli sat in the front seat of the station wagon (they were the parents) My sister was off at a French immersion camp, so she missed that experience.
There are two squares with Woolworths T-shirts -- I worked there in the summers of 1979 and 1980. The T-shirt had designs front and back, so I had two sides to represent the two summers. One year I worked in plants and pets, and another I was front cash relief and folded a lot of souvenir t-shirts (foreshadowing, perhaps). Then begins the Trinity Western saga ... Trinity Western College at the start. North Upper was my dorm in first year. The pale blue shirt from the City of London and the white one with the London Underground map come from the "Literary London" course that I took after my first year of Trinity (it was actually a TWC summer course ... unforgettable!).
Row 4 starts with a Capernwray Bible School t-shirt ... I went to the Spring School to Carnforth in England (yes, I've lived in a castle). The white one next to it is another mouse with "squeeze me, I love you" ... which I believe my mother made for me with an iron-on transfer. The black square is The Ed Norton Memorial Choir ... my roommate in 4th year was an artist, and this was a silk-screen that she had done ... kind of an inside joke, since Ed Norton was alive and well, and not in need of a memorial choir. The wild one next to it is from the US Virgin Islands ... my UVic roomie travelled there and brought me back the shirt ... and the green one beside it is my actual UVic tank top.
Row 5 starts with the Care Bear "grumpy bear" ... which was my nickname in my first year of marriage. There's another Trinity Western University one, from a reunion, then "Chill Out" from a Mac's convenience store (I won it as a prize!). The pink shirt from Florida is a souvenir from our honeymoon in August 1984. The white square at the end of the row says "I Love Music" ... again, I may have inherited this from my sister, but I do love music, and sang in choir at TWU and at Emmanuel Baptist.
The bottom row (#6) begins with "Annie" ... I fell in love with the musical when I saw it in London, and loved it again when the drama class of Clarence Fulton performed it (I did a lot of substitute teaching at Fulton that year). There's another TWU alumni shirt, which is half of a square diagonally combined with part of the Mac's Chill Out shirt. The black square has emblems from Zirka Dancing ... my 3 children were involved in Ukrainian dancing for a few years, and I got involved on the parent executive and helping to write the stories for the year-end show. EFBC "Just Jump In" was a shirt from our church Ministry Fair a few years back, encouraging everyone to volunteer for something. And lastly, the light blue Creative Memories "Memoranza" shirt ... I was a Creative Memories consultant for several years, in the 21st century.
The fabric I used for the sashing is cotton that I bought when I worked at Woolworths ... sort of a chambray or denim look with yellow and red patches on it. It actually suits the "looking back" theme and certainly fits in to the time period for the first half of the quilt. Somehow I managed to have just enough. I made the quilt using the "quilt-as-you-go" method. First I ironed on a stabilizer to keep the t-shirt from stretching, then I sandwiched the T-shirt and "sashing" with batting in the middle and the same fabric on the back as I used between the squares. Then I machine quilted diagonal lines across the squares, and finally sewed all the squares together and added outside borders and binding. The quilt was finished on my 51st birthday ... and no, I don't think I'll do another one!
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