Robin's T-Shirt Quilt

Happy.... Happier.... Happiest...! "Thanks for noticing me," claims Eeyore, my daughter Robin's favorite Disney character. Maybe also her favorite T-shirt since I saw her wearing it a lot in her adolescent years. Those two sayings have a double entendre. That bin of my daughter's T-shirts, waiting patiently in the bowels of my sewing room closet to be emptied claims, "Thanks for noticing me". Happy... Happier... Happiest...! also stands for me, so pleased I finally got around to sewing together those long-languishing mementos of my daughter's years growing up. Robin, married, in her forties, long past high school and college years, and into the throes of a full time engineering job while parenting a nine-year-old and a twelve-year-old, finally has her childhood memories immortalized in a quilt.

There were sixteen T-shirts, a few were duplicates and a few had sayings on the front and back as well. Some had smaller logo inserts that I could not just toss. Capturing all these images in a quilt was a challenge. My quilting friend Kathie, who has made several T-shirt quilts before, pointed out to me that there was a lot of white so I dispersed the colors from the non-white shirts throughout and added colors from other shirts to brighten it up. I laid all the shirts out on a California King size bed and rearranged, rearranged, and rearranged again. The major theme was horses. My favorite shirt is a toss-up between Eeyore: Happy, Happier, Happiest (in the second column) and Fat Horse Cafe (in the third column) because of the bright colors and cartoon images. Though I will admit, Breyerfest has fond memories from when Robin and I went there together. Here is a list of the shirts contained in the  four columns.

There were no shirts for Mendenhall Middle School, Livermore High School, nor Harvey Mudd College. She may have taken them with her when she moved out — or decided that part of her life was behind her —  but I had none. No worries. I certainly had enough to work with. The quilt size grew to about seven feet long and slightly under six feet wide.  Just moving it around to iron and press each seam open gave me a sore back and arms. 

Not shown, but requiring many hours of effort was fusing the knit of each T-shirt and filler piece to stabilize it. My friend Kathie provided all the fusible web from her projects (a sheerweight fusible by Pellon), some leftover knits in colors I could use as fillers, and even fused a few shirts for me. Thank you Kathie!

My daughter, who is an engineer like me, will appreciate the Excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the widths and heights of the T-shirt components, so I included it here in its full detailed glory. This is for posterity only. I am not doing this again! I inserted pictures in the spreadsheet along the way to help me keep track. The T-shirts were laid out on the bed in the guest room, my computer was downstairs in the family room, and my sewing room was also upstairs. There was a lot of running back-and-forth and up-and-down and a lot of remembering. I got my workouts, both physical and mental.

Here are photos of some of the in-progress planning and assembly process along with a legible zoom-in on the associated spreadsheet section for columns 1&2, columns 3&4, and the filler column.

Column 1&2

Part of Columns 3&4

Vertical Fillers

For a quilt this size, I had three yards of an 108" wide backing fabric which was in blues, Robin's favorite color. Even though I did not have to piece the back, I wisely decided this quilt was too heavy and awkward for me to quilt on my sit-down Handi-Quilter Sweet Sixteen. Instead I took it with the wide backing to a local quilter from my guild, Darla Padilla of Wildflower Quilting, who does this professionally on a frame. That was certainly the right decision. She did a beautiful job. This is the photo she texted me when the quilt was ready for pickup. "Hot off the press", it is still on the frame. I was so excited, I picked it up later that very same day.

The quilting details were incredible. Here are closeups of some of my favorites that Darla did. The bodies of mare and foal on the left and the bodies of the wild mustangs on the right are all outlined so they are accented. The wavy lines under the mare and foal echo that of the stream at their feet and the swirls about the mustangs attract attention to the dust whirls they must be stirring up.

The camp shirts for two of Robin's summer camps also outline the horse bodies even down to the details of the legs, tails, heads, and rider. Great care was taken to accent, rather than obliterate the names of the camps. Again the theme of swirls gives a great sense of movement.

Once again small details delighted me. On the left, each window box of Eeyore as well as each delicate daisy is accented. The words Happy, Happier, and Happiest are left unstitched so as to stand puffed up. On the right, the tiny colt from Robin's kindergarten shirt is outlined, even to the tip of his tail, as he kicks up his heels (amid swirls of dust). The school name, Arroyo Seco, and its mascot, Colts, remains puffed up as attention getters.

The Fat Horse (on the left) is outlined such that his plump tummy shows. Detailing is continued even down to the carrot in his mouth. (I never thought about it before, but how do you get fat on carrots?) For the Zebra (on the right), a black thread color was substituted and even the stripes on his neck and muzzle are outlined. The purple orchid also stands out. The background swirls in black thread give texture without competing with the zebra or orchid.

The royal blue Diablo Pony Club logo and United States Pony Clubs medallion, not nearly as flashy as the multi-colored shirts, were still awarded attention. The radius of a swirl echos the arc of the logo; both inner circular edges and the outer scalloped edge of the medallion are stitched with care.

I had gotten the quilt back from the Darla on June 18th, a month before my trip out to visit my daughter in Oklahoma. I had enough time to embroider and add the labels and to cut, press, and add the binding. I dithered back and forth on the labels. Then the perfect quilt name hit me. I am Polish and my husband decided our daughter Robin should be reminded of her Polish heritage. He called her Robinski (pronounced Ruh•bin•ski ) accent on the second syllable. Within the family, the shortened nickname "Ski" has stuck. What else could this T-shirt quilt be named but SKI'S TEES. I debated whether the creator and date label should read "LOVE, MOM" or "💙 MOM" or my name. I decided to go with my name and date as DIANE CHAMBERS 2025. The love and maternal relationship would speak for themselves. The grosgrain ribbon for the labels is royal blue, a signature color in Robin's wedding.

The fabric for the binding is also royal blue. I cut my binding 2¼"wide to finish as a ⅜" edge. I needed 7.625 strips calculated by 2 × (69"+ 83½") ÷ 40" WOF. I cut eight strips to have some wiggle room. Joined together, there is a lot of it and the pile appears a bit overwhelming. A rough double check indicated that 2 × (~6 ft + ~7 ft) = 26 ft. Wound tidily around a 12" ruler, a quick wrap count confirms that I have at least 26 feet. Whew! I would hate to be manhandling that big quilt and be short by a few inches while attaching the binding!

The backing fabric has swirls which were a contributing factor to the choice of swirls for the quilting pattern. The backing fabric also contains the royal blue color and showcases the royal blue corner labels nicely.

Here is the bottom half of the completed quilt, draped over an upstairs cabinet. Four basically white shirts do not fade into the background like wall flowers but also stand out with the details stitched amidst their swirls. From left to right teh stitching details are: accenting the flag on "1997 Closeup Inauguration", featuring the quote on "she doth nothing but talk of her horse", setting apart the frame on "1997 Science Bowl", and zigzagging between the horse hardware collection on "just a bit".

Here is the completed quilt in its entirety. I made a display sleeve for hanging even though I highly doubt she has a wall space big enough to accommodate the 69" x 83½ " size. That is almost 6 ft x 7 ft! My 6'4" husband and his friend, who is standing on a step, are struggling to hold it up for the photograph. I love that her given name, Robin, is inconspicuously positioned near the right edge of the quilt.