Author: KyleTheGirl

You old t-shirt may have monetary value

Vintage T-shirts may be Valuable

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

First and foremost, what we do is weave memories in the form of t-shirts and clothes into artistic quilts. These can become priceless family heirlooms.  Our distinctive Just T-shirt Quilts tell stories of life. The stories of the quilt are told through t-shirt collections which represent priceless memories. Every quilt is designed by creating a pattern, then cutting and sewing the collection of t-shirts into a beautiful quilt.

Clients come to us with projects from every walk of life. The expectation that the finished product, a personalized, unique quilt, will capture the memories and milestones of life. To do this involves, of course,  cutting up the t-shirts!

 When considering turning your t-shirts into a priceless quilt, it’s worth considering that your vintage t-shirts may be valuable. The market for vintage t-shirts has begun to sizzle. Collectors of all ages are focusing on vintage t-shirts. Like every collector’s market, supply and demand determines price. The t-shirt craze is no exception. Sports, music, graphic, charity, and commemorative event t-shirts are only a few of the genres that are represented in the world of t-shirt collectibles.

The vintage t-shirt collectible market continues to grow. Today appraisal apps such as Legiteem8 are driving the t-shirt collectible market with real time appraisals. Vintage T-Shirt Facebook groups and online sellers on eBay and Esty are all feeding the value of vintage t-shirts. Services that will authenticate and provide guidance to collectors of vintage t-shirts include Defunkd.

Valuable Vintage T-Shirts

We’re entrusted to create a quilt of priceless memories with shirts and clothing that often hold special meaning. Value is in the eye of the beholder, but do know that NASCAR, basketball, championship, and classic rock concert t-shirts are commanding record prices. A 1975 Led Zeppelin North American Tour t-shirt may bring over $400! In addition to t-shirts that are nationally and internationally sought after by vintage t-shirt collectors, there is also a growing demand for regional niche t-shirts from local events.

The Peachtree Road Race, an annual Atlanta, GA event began in the 1970s. It is legendary among runners, and vintage t-shirts from the event are in demand. I recently came upon a vintage Peach Tree Road Race t-shirt at a local estate sale with an asking price of $69. This was an eye-opening experience for me as an artist who regularly cuts up t-shirts to create unique quilts for clients!

The $69 price tag for the vintage Peach Tree Race t-shirt pictured is a far cry from the hundreds of dollars that national event t-shirts are currently demanding. It is just one indication that the demand for vintage t-shirts is blooming!  

Cutting Up Value for a Priceless Heirloom

A unique quilt created with a collection of vintage t-shirts is usually priceless to the person commissioning it. Just be aware that to design, cut and sew a distinctive commemorative or memorial quilt, the value of a vintage shirt that could be worth hundreds may be sacrificed. It may be worth checking the value to make sure that you won’t have any regrets down the road.

Vintage t-shirts are not just old shirts. The squares and shapes of the quilt used to create a treasured family heirloom, in addition to the memories, may have monetary value. It is up to you to decide if the value of the individual t-shirts is worth the result, a family treasure that is priceless or monetary value that can be exchange for cash. Value is in the eye of the beholder!

Consider the options. If you select heirloom over the monetary value, we can help. I welcome your call to get started on your t-shirt quilt project, 678-324-8084.

Click here for more examples of Peachtree Road Race quilts here https://justtshirtquilts.com/ngg_tag/peachtree What’s your vision?

Starting early means that this Christmas quilt will be ready on time!

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

This is one of 3 small quilts that we received in July. The fabrics and colors used here go together so well. Our job is to add the quilting. We do have some festive quilting designs like snowflakes, but this quilter wanted something plain and simple. The squiggles on here, when you look close, are called meander as they are meandering all over the quilt in gold thread. The quilter will make and hand sew on her own binding — that’s the outermost layer that finishes the edges. It will make a very nice gift. Our usual turn around on quilting time is 2 weeks. That gets longer around busy times like Christmas. So if you have a quilt you need quilted – early is great. That applies, too, if you would like for us to make the full quilt for you.

Yes, I hate to say it, but…. as of today, Christmas is 143 days away. Give us a call to get started on the best gift! 678-324-8084.

The front and back of a lovely Christmas quilt
The back

A Korean quilt from the 1950’s with hand embroidery created for a special occasion

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

Duk-Sun is a former employee and incredible hand sewer. I reached out to her to see if she could shed some light on the meaning of the embroidered designs on this piece brought back from Korea by a friend of Sarah’s. She’s Korean and was nice enough to come in and look it over. Her feedback included that the piece was probably gifted for a special occasion such as for a wedding gift. The delicate hand embroidery and sewing shows scenes from everyday Korean life around or before the time of the Korean war. The scenes were familiar to her and she was able to provide some descriptions for them pictures. Thanks Duk-Sun.

Korean Embroidery
Korean Embroidery
Korean Embroidery
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Korean Embroidery
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Korean Embroidery
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Korean Embroidery
Korean Embroidery
Korean Embroidery
Korean Embroidery
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Happy 4th of July

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

We wish you a very nice 4th of July filled with lots of fun, food, and family. We will be closed July 1st through the 4th for the holiday and will be available to serve you when we reopen on the 5th at 9:30. We’re in this week through the 30th and welcome your call if we can help. Maybe you’d like to brainstorm on some ideas ! 678-324-8084.

A Satisfied Customer

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

We mailed her finished quilt to her in New York. A short time later she graciously posted this on Facebook. The quilt took a long time and a lot of collaboration so we got to know each other pretty well throughout the creation process. The story and pictures are here https://justtshirtquilts.com/sailing-bowling-race…I don’t cry much, but this really touched me. I hope her feedback is helpful to you if you’re trying to decide where to have your quilt made.

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Kyle is a wonderful woman full of empathy, love, and thoughtfulness which is reflected in how she runs her incredible business. Kyle is embodying the American small business dream. Just T-shirt Quilts is a sustainable business that repurposes existing textile materials and morphs them into something new and beautiful while employing women of color and putting something uniquely special in the world.

Kyle builds a strong level of trust with her customers to even have a thriving business. She approaches people with empathy to understand the materials that turn their cloth memories into beautifully handcrafted pieces of art in the form of a quilt.

Kyle helped me navigate how to best honor my dad and I didn’t like the traditional square T-shirt quilt pattern I had seen so much of online. Kyle was excited to try something different and had so many creative and thoughtful ideas to approach piecing together the fabric in a unique and modern style.

I left my dad’s shirts from his time in the boating industry which was also his lifelong side hustle, his volunteer firefighter days, his bowling league days, his soccer and band dad days, and everything in between that was him in the form of clothing with a stranger that had built enough trust with me to part ways with these material things 5 years after he passed too suddenly.

Over a year, Kyle had taken digital images of my shirts and had visualized what the hypothetical designs would look like and we designed one side at a time. She didn’t make any cuts until I had approved her design and made me feel so safe with each decision that had to be made. She guided me to choose the thread color, accent fabric, and the many other small choices that needed to be made. She was good with managing my expectations and I had the most delightful experience as her customer. She would provide updates on the progress and show me progress pictures all along the way.

This turned out better than I could have imagined and I’m so thankful for all of the love and work that went into this piece that I will treasure forever.

https://justtshirtquilts.com/sailing-bowling-race-cars…/

Sailing, bowling, race cars. Love never dies.

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

She came to us with a laundry basket full of her father’s clothes wanting to create something nice to remember him by. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but wanted to use as many of his clothes that she had to make a quilt.

Sometimes you can tell a lot about a person from their clothing. From the laundry basket, we could see that he liked to bowl as there were 2 red bowling shirts. He also like race cars and racing. There were a lot of those. He loved the water, fishing and sailing. He was a volunteer firefighter.

For the design she didn’t want anything ordinary, but something different. We always start with the design so we got to work and this is the result. The Hell Rock centerpiece was a lot different for us. To make that we adapted a traditional quilt pattern until we got to something that she liked. The star points and circles around Hell Rock and the Fire Department patch, bottom center, were all cut from our adapted pattern and sewn together individually. The shirts being on an angle was different, too. It posed a challenge to get everything to fit together, but we made it work.

A lot of the solid-color pieces on the front were from his clothing. We reused part of the bowling shirts, for instance, in order to create the red triangles. The brown and white print came from one of his shirts. Reusing clothing helps the environment by helping to keep those items out of our landfills.

For the main fabric, we searched around to find those with a nautical theme and presented several to our customer. She liked the teal, yellow, and red sailboat fabric so that was used for the borders and around the shirts on the front. The fabric complements a blue and white sailing shirt that he wore that was also included.

The front was finished and with her approval we got started on the back. She approved our mockup of the back. This was constructed using predominantly cotton clothing fabric and purchased nautical fabrics. The design is interlocking triangles known in quilting as half-square triangles. It’s an entirely different look from the front, but is what she liked. All of our quilts are reversible so the back can be the front or the front the back making it easy to make changes to your décor as desired.

The pain of losing a loved one can be so difficult — not having that person’s physical presence around any more. Still, “those we love never truly leave us.” “There are things that death cannot touch.” – Jack Thorne

The quilt becomes a surrogate. It’s not him, but it can be held and hugged just as if it was. Our quilts are designed to last a long time. Our customer now has a perpetual reminder of fatherly, eternal love. Love never dies.

The Front – both sides took 150 hrs — lots of talent and TLC!
The back

Angel Baby

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

Two calls came in 2 weeks before Christmas. Ring ring. “Can you make quilts from clothes?” “Yes, of course.” “My son…was murdered….. He was 17.” Silence. Kids aren’t supposed to go first. They’re supposed to grow up in to adults. I thought about my own, now grown, children. I felt guilty.

The nurse in me is curious about the nature of the injuries. Was he shot? Stabbed? What hospital did he go to? What happened? I realize it would be highly inappropriate to ask her any of these. So I don’t.

The other call: “Can you make a quilt for my husband? “He was real close to his Dad and he just died last week.” Muffled tears. A change in breathing. The air is thick and heavy. Sometimes there really are no words.

Then after Christmas we finished a quilt for what would have ordinarily been her father-in-laws birthday. He didn’t live to make it. The quilt finished, she came to pick it up the quilt on the 28th for her husband. We received a print out of a post from him, thanking her for the quilt in memory of his father.

The baby clothes quilt was made for a newborn son that didn’t survive life. The clothes, were likely purchased in anticipation of his coming, or shower gifts. Now, no longer here, the cute clothes are transformed in to art, to help remember and imagine what it would be like if he was here. The quilting on this one is clouds. His name, removed for privacy, is embroidered at the top. In his absence, the quilt becomes a surrogate to hold tight and ease the pain that occurs when the heart strings are being pulled. Hugs to all that had a difficult holiday season.

Providing comfort and care at the time of loss. Doing whatever it takes to create a special memory for the loved one. Most times, they are living, fine and with us. But not always. As an old nurse once told me, “death is a part of life.” It’s hard to describe, but there is something very spiritual about honoring a loved one through a quilt. It’s a merger between nursing, providing care, and the art and creative interpretation of making a quilt. The process, for me, is very fulfilling. This is my purpose. This is why I do this.

A Name Well Known in Atlanta

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

A name well known in Atlanta. We were honored to create this for Colleen Nunn for her grandson — a soccer player and coach. I didn’t know at first who she was, but the first clue that she was well known when she came to us was interruptions for several important phone calls from her assistants that needed decisions from her! Colleen is very eloquent and extremely nice. We worked together to create a nice mix for her of all of the things that represent important parts of her grandson’s life through the shirts and the quilting (zoom in). We never expect tips but it was generous of her to give us one! Thanks Colleen! Here it says she used to work for the CIA! Name used with permission! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Nunn

A Cuddly Gift for a Toddler

Posted on | by KyleTheGirl

This handsome guy is checking out the clothes on a special gift commissioned by grandma for his 2nd birthday. Her requirements included lightweight, not “stiff”, and specific dimensions, similar to one of his favorite blankets so that he could easily drag it around with him as needed. It includes select parts of onesies and baby t-shirts that are now too small to wear. Too small clothes can still be worn, just in a different way–in a quilt! She’s very detail oriented (an attorney), we get that. The fine points really matter, zoom in to see the quilting design. It’s a familiar bird, beagle, and lots and lots of bubbles ! The back is a super soft minky dimple dot. Save your baby clothes! If a toddler gift is part of your vision, we can help!