Tuesday, May 2, 2017

STRIPES!

It all started with this humorous FaceBook post by my husband's cousin, Nan, who wrote: "Please settle a debate. Chris wants to keep this shirt. I say Garth Brooks called and wants his shirt back! Keep or purge?"
                  
Naturally, I offered to cut it up and make him something...if that would help! The shirt arrived right before our cross country move in March. As it turned out, Chris liked the idea of a cushion for his camper!  I finally came up with a plan for it last week!
The Garth shirt, in all it's stripey glory!
I looked up images of quilts with stripes to see how clever folks had used stripes, and settled on something fun with Flying Geese. Let the cutting begin!
                                   
There wasn't much left for trimmings because I used the "wrong side" of the fabric for the solid.
                                             
I cut carefully, since my supply was limited. I made the geese one at a time, so all the stripes orient the same direction.
                                               
And, yes, I did get my "free" HSTs out of the deal! Which of course meant a bonus pillow!
                                                
The back sides were as pretty as the fronts!
Here is how the first pillow came out, after much layout play!
                                            
I really was "seeing stripes" after playing around with all these Flying Geese and HSTs.
It was a challenge for me to make any sense of them whatsoever, even after what I thought was careful cutting. But the irregular pieces from the shirt itself limited how "matchy" I could get with the cuts. I did what I could, and let it go at that...heck, they are for a camper, I told myself, not the centerpiece of the living room! Ha!
 There was not enough of the shirt to back the smaller pillow. The fabric is heavier and I didn't want to use quilting cottons for it, and was lucky enough to find this crazy heavyweight that my BIL had given me some time ago! The colors were close enough to warrant the use of it!
 The quilting on the HST pillow simply follows the seam lines...a favorite of mine, tried and true!
Straight lines on the Flying Geese seemed appropriate to me! 
The pair of Garth Camper Cushions have made their way back to Chris, who, I hear, highly approves!


                                     
I thought this project was a fun way to "get rid of the shirt, and keep it too"!
The larger cushion finished at 18", the smaller at 14" or so.
Thanks for stopping by for a look! Your visits and comments are always welcome and appreciated!

linking up with Lorna Let's Bee Social!






7 comments:

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

This is a great way to get the shirt out of the wardrobe and still get to enjoy it. Both of these look great!

Nicole said...

Nicely done, and I'm glad that everyone is happy with the finished results.

Miss Alissa said...

Good job, those are so fun! I think my dad had a shirt very similar to that ;)

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

I love the story behind these cushions - makes me appreciate the fabric more as I wouldn't have chosen the stripes if I was shopping for fabric. Well done!

Bernie Kringel said...

The perfect solution! Great idea and you implemented it with flair. I love that you used the back side of the fabric too.

Lucy | Charm About You said...

They are fabulous!! Great way to make use of the shirt and Nan's comment made me giggle!

Preeti said...

This is a fun story. You did an amazing job on the somewhat ugly shirt and made it into a chic piece. Kudos to you!!!