I finished a little baby vest today that is a present for a new baby. Here's a peek (don't want to give it all away until it's delivered), and my picture of the day, number 80 (I've got all the others taken, I just need to put them up here, and at the 365project...).
Back in college I was on the rowing team and at our big end-of-the-year race (which was more of a tournament) the rowers from different schools would trade shirts. The men would actually give their racing jersey to the winning squad...so at the end of the year if you were fast you had a collection of racing jerseys from all the teams you'd beaten. The women's squad didn't do this, instead we (and almost all the other schools squads too) printed up t-shirts at the end of every year and then rowers would buy as many as they wanted and trade them with rowers from other schools.
I wore all of these for workouts in college and when college was over I didn't want to get rid of them. I didn't want to wear them out. Really, I wanted to keep them somehow, but I wasn't sure exactly what to do with them. I had the idea of making a quilt out of them and spent a couple of years coming up with ever more elaborate designs (making the shape of a Y for Yale out of the shirts, that kind of thing) and carting them around with me from move to move. Eventually I decided I would do some kind of quilt for our guest bedroom. Well, we don't have a guest bedroom, and really, wouldn't that be kind of embarrassing? Then, last summer we bought our awesome hammock on vacation. Gus and I discovered that the hammock is a lot more comfortable with some blanket between the ropes and your flesh, so last night I FINALLY just did it. Threw the t-shirts and some fleece together and didn't worry about it being clever or perfect or anything. Just fun and DONE.
The sewing is definitely wonky in places and I don't care at all. It's finally finished, I can use and enjoy the shirts again and the next time we move I won't feel guilty about carting around a box of t-shirts from college and fleece I bought way back in 1997.
Some of my favorite shirts: a painted sweatshirt my mom made for me, a clever cartoon from a Boston University shirt (I think), and my year, my crew!
Any hey, go comment on Toy Truck!
What a fantastic idea for your shirts! I'm glad to hear you just went for it and made something happen with them. As we've definitely discussed, perfectionism can stop you in your tracks.
The colors on the vest are great too.
Posted by: kristin n | March 24, 2010 at 11:58 PM