Recycling - A Great Craft Idea

What can you make with a stack of men’s dress shirts? 

I had this great idea for a craft project using men’s dress shirts.  I just needed some help from my dad in the dress shirt department.  For as long as I can remember, my dad has worn dress shirts to work.  Like me with shoes, he has quite the collection.  I asked him for a dozen random dress shirts that he wasn’t using anymore.  I didn’t want to give too much away and sway him with the color or pattern choices.

The first thing I did was remove all the buttons.  (These may come in handy for a later craft project.)

Then I cut each shirt into sections, and cut the sections into rectangles.

Mix and matching the various colors and patterns, I sewed two rectangles together to make a square.

Squares would be enough, but squares would be boring, so I cut the squares into triangles.

Through a series of sewing these triangles together into larger triangles and then sewing those triangles together, I was back to squares.

Back to squares.  We all know that squares are boring!  Using five of these squares, I sewed three strips, then two of the three strips together.

The next step was to add the border around the two panels.

Enough with the triangles, squares, and rectangles.  Let’s move on to something a little more fun.  Using the leftover scraps of fabric, I cut several circles in various sizes.  I then stacked these circles on top of each other.

You can’t really see it very well, but the larger circles on the left are the front panel of the shirts and still include the pockets.

Mixing and matching the circles, I sewed them down a rectangle (back to the rectangles!) of white fabric.

I then sewed the circle panel in between the other two finished panels.

At this point, it was time to turn this project over to the experts.  I took the quilt top and the backing fabric down to Heart to Heart quilters in Merrill, waited 33 days, and then went back and picked up a finished project.

I love the quilting pattern on the finished quilt. 

But most of all, I love that I have a quilt made out of something that belonged to my dad.