The Most Important Quilt---Blogger's Quilt Festival

T-shirts are prepared.

Working on the layout.

The finished front of the quilt.

The back of the quilt.

On display at the Memorial.

The 40th birthday quilt.

Me, my Brother and Peaty, hiking in the snow.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : approx 80″x 90″

Special techniques used : Fused interfacing to stabilize t-shirts, wiggle quilting. 

Quilted by : Sylvia B. Lewis

Best Category : Bed Quilt, Home Machine Quilted Quilt

The most Important Quilt that I have ever made was for my Brother, Tom Borschel.  He had requested it.  He was a trail runner, snowshoe racer, bike riding, adventure seeking man.  He had a vast collection of event t-shirts and asked if I would turn some of them into a quilt.  Some of his friends had sent away for one and he thought that I could do "better".  Of course I said yes.  He brought a bag full of his favorites and we sorted through them.  I wanted to make sure to include the most desired ones in the quilt.  As we looked through the memories, the smile on his face will be forever etched in my heart.  My brother had been recently diagnosed with ALS and I knew that there would be no more t-shirts.

It was very difficult to work on this quilt.  Every time that I opened the bag of shirts I would start to cry.  Finally a friend had come over for a visit and with her there I was able cut up the shirts and get the project going.  I rough cut the designs, then fused some lightweight interfacing to stabilize the knit fabrics.  I cut the prepared shirts into sizes that were divisible by 2" plus 1/2" for a seam allowance. I had cut a bunch of strips in varying widths and colors, browns, blacks, greens, golds and whites.  I used the white strips to surround the colored shirts and the others to surround the white background shirts.  This way there was white on every block to tie them together.

I had worked on the layout at a quilt retreat in California. It was a puzzle to get all the shirts in. I used the border fabric to fill in all the spaces. I was able to get the top and back together that weekend.  A week later I was at another retreat at Ruby's Inn near Bryce National Park.  There I was able to get the machine quilting and the binding finished.  I used big chunks of various fabrics for the back.  I tried to include all kinds of novelty prints that represented things that were important to Tom.  There was one leftover t-shirt block from the Power Bar shirt, so that went on the back as well. I also made a pillowcase to put the quilt in for gifting.  It went via our sister since she lives halfway between.  The message from my brother when he saw it was that it was the most Awesome quilt!  Way better than he expected it to be. Some of his friends had been disappointed with the ones that they had ordered.

My brother died late December of 2011.  The quilt went to the hospital with him.  At the Memorial it was hung as a backdrop to some of the displays that  were set up by his wife and sons.  I had dozens of his friends come up to me and tell me how much they loved the quilt and how much my brother meant to them.  They would talk about the races that they had ran/snowshoed/biked with him that were represented in the quilt.  The small wall hanging that I had made for his 40th birthday was also on display.  

Yes, it is just a T-shirt quilt.  It will never win any ribbons or awards.  It is the most important quilt I have ever or will ever make.  And I didn't really make it.  My Brother did.  He earned those shirts.  He made those memories. I just sewed the seams.

This is my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out the other entries.  It looks like it is going to be a great show!