Altering a Denim Shirt for Our Northeast Quilting Friends Quilt Guild

My quilt life seems to always have revolved around friends.  I have been sewing since I was 8 years old and embroidering before that.  Having moved to Houston, Texas, in1985, I met a young mom, like me named Meagan.  Like the proverbial horse led to the trough, she brought me to her house for our kids to play and to see her quilts.  She was from Wisconsin, originally and maybe it's the cold days and craving warmth that makes a lot of prolific quilters there, but, she was a quilter at a young age.  She told me stories of being under the quilt to be quilted tightly stretched across a frame and many women sitting around it.  The little kids were underneath, and when the needle came through, they pulled it down and pushed it back up through the layers for an awaiting family member to pull up and push back down.  I wonder what the stitches looked like.

Anyway, the point is, most times it really does take someone to "introduce" someone to quilting.  Whether it's mother to daughter, friend to friend, I've found that situation to be pretty common.

Moving to Louisville, Kentucky in 1996, I tried out a couple of guilds and decided they weren't for me.  Meagan and I had started a guild in Houston, called the Killer Bee, it's still going strong.  So in June of 2000, I went to our Women's Ministry leader at our church and asked if we could have a quilt guild there.  She said yes, and the Northeast Quilting Friends began.  It was called Quilting Friends at first, but, turned out 3 guilds liked that same name, so we changed it.

This year we are making a new shirt.  You know most people design T-shirts and let someone else make it, but, we like a challenge so...

This is our old shirt that I jazzed up with a bit of batik trim.  The pocket became the name tag.  On the back is a detachable mini quilt for our guild name and logo.

Now we are going to be making a new shirt.  I found this denim work shirt at the Dollar General.  First I removed the pocket to design a new name tag. Next I cut off the bottom edge because it was way too long.  Then I removed the sleeves and will probably cut them to 3/4 length as I like that length.

Once I get the basic shirt the way I like it, I'll work out the design for the back mini quilt which can be buttoned on.