I recently finished this quilt for a mother to give her adult son for Christmas – he is working towards becoming a Baptist minister, and these are t-shirts from various mission projects and Christian youth groups he has been involved with along the way. The only direction she gave me was to use Univeristy of Georgia colors, but no actual bull dog or UGA fabric… So I ran with just the red and black color scheme – and decided to use some traditional quilt blocks, like pinwheels and half square triangles, to set off the t-shirts, yet also pull it all together into a more unified theme.
I used a 80/20 cotton/polyester batting, and quilted it on my long arm using clear polyester thread, so that you end up only seeing the texture of the quilting, without it obscuring the actual writing or images on the t-shirts themselves. These shots of the back are after a machine washing and drying, so the characteristic “quilty” look is visible even with the invisible thread.
As usual, one of our furry friends joined in to help – this is our cat helping me put on the binding. Sweet!
My friend had a few repeat t-shirts, so instead of putting those in the quilt, I made a simple matching pillow using just one of them.
When Christmas rolls around, to present the gift, the mom intends to put the quilt and pillow in a big red Santa Claus bag – and wanted something special to use as a gift tag. So I embroidered these cloth “tags” for her. They are about 8 inches long with snow flake button holes for a tie to go through.
I know this son will be touched to receive his quilt – it is sized to be a large throw quilt, or to fit over the top of a queen bed – so he will have options regarding where he uses it. I hope he will have many years of enjoyment as he looks at the quilt and remembers what each t-shirt represents!
I recently completed the biggest t-shirt quilt I’ve ever done – 78 shirts lovingly saved by one mom for her son. She contacted me to make the t-shirt quilt for his college graduation, so I first assumed it would be his collegiate sports t-shirts – but to my astonishment she had saved every one of his team t-shirts since his t-ball days as a preschooler, all the way through his high school career. How sweet is that?
To keep the quilt a size that would fit on my long arm, I cut the tees as small as I could, keeping only the team name or main part of the shirt. A few shirts I used the back as well since they had all the boys names who played on that team. This quilt ended up 90″x100″ – which will be great for this young man because he is very tall and he should have no trouble stretching out and not have his toes sticking out from under the bottom of the quilt!
I quilted a simple design to keep the lettering on the t-shirts legible, yet dense enough to hold the layers together securely – as well as to add texture and visual interest to the finished quilt.
And here’s one last shot of the quilt back – with a cat scurrying across it – seems like every time I lay a quilt on the floor for a picture either a cat or a dog feels the need to help!
A friend recently asked me if I could make a skirt out of her favorite Key West t-shirts, and I immediately thought – yes! Another way to repurpose and reuse t-shirts! I’m so pleased with how this turned out that I’m saving some of my own vacation t-shirts to make a cute beach cover up. My friend wore hers on a recent cruise, and received many compliments – that she was kind enough to pass along to me!
In addition to the skirt, she also asked me to save the small image from the front of the t-shirts. I was able to make these into patches she intends to sew onto a shirt.
The idea of reusing, recycling, and repurposing appeals to me on many levels – of course from an ecological point of view, the less we throw into our landfills the better – but on a personal level there is much to be said for finding new life for something that is old, maybe out-of-style, or simply not in use any more. And, it appeals to me to turn an old t-shirt into a sweet reminder of a special person or event.
In the photos below, these bunnies are one idea if you have only one t-shirt you want to repurpose. The blue bunny is made from a t-shirt my daughter was wearing when she broke her arm, about 15 years ago, during spring break – a little incident with a horse… requiring a trip to the emergency room. The nurses there had to cut off her t-shirt, which was almost more traumatic to her than the broken arm. I recently ran across the remnants of this shirt and was able to use enough of it to make this bunny. And even all these years later, and even though she’s all grown up – she was thrilled to get something new made from an old favorite.
The three other bunnies were made for a set of grandsons from three identical t-shirts of their grand daddy’s. He recently passed away, and these were given to the boys as part of their Easter Basket goodies this year. What a fun keepsake for them!
Another way I’ve re-purposed t-shirts is to make tote bags. The blue one with the Howard Finster coke bottle art, I actually made for myself, using a t-shirt of my own that had gotten too small (or maybe I got too big). I used an old pair of jeans to make the bottom reinforcement piece, removed the hardware off an old purse I never use, and used some left over canvas to line the bag.
The red and white bag is for a friend to give her mother for Mother’s Day. The t-shirt was originally printed to commemorate a milestone birthday for her mother 10 years ago. I had some left over red ticking fabric for the lining and bottom reinforcement panel, as well as a scrap piece of zipper to use for the little clamp on the inside.
Pillows are another option if you don’t have enough shirts for an entire quilt – or you have anything else to reuse. In these photos below all the pillows are recycled from various fabric items – the large Montana pillow was once a tea towel, the woven one was once dish towels, the small white pillow first lived its life as a zippered sweater, the other large pillow with the white lines started out as a baby quilt (that I never liked once I finished) and lastly the small pillow with embroidered flowers originally was a table cloth that ended up stained beyond use.
And in the final photo, of course a single t-shirt can be easily turned into a pillow – maybe you have too many t-shirts for a quilt, or maybe you only have the one t-shirt. Either way, this is a great option as well.
Our son attends Montana State University in Bozeman, MT – and will graduate in May. He requested a t-shirt in MSU colors – but only wanted three t-shirts in it. With that in mind here are pictures of what I came up with. I am very happy with the way it turned out – the colors are so bold and bright – can’t have a sad face with beautiful colors like that around! I quilted an all-over leaf and vine pattern because he is a Conservation Biologist and I knew something natural and organic would appeal to him. So congratulations to my son – we are all very proud of him! And may this quilt keep him warm and cozy this winter in the Montana cold – and make him think of his momma’s love.
I’ve been making t-shirt quilts now for several years – and I’ve been trying to make them as artistic and unique as I can. I will admit it’s quite fun to watch the reaction of my customers when they see their finished quilt the first time – very gratifying when they are so happy and excited. Here’s a recent one I finished – several different sizes of shirts were used so to fill in some open areas in the design I used a traditional quilt block, the St. George star.
In the past years the cable industry has witnessed two super mergers that made the major players redefine their game. The competition bars have been raised in terms of what the cable companies had to offer as Internet speeds and channel lineups.
Spectrum and Comcast Xfinity are the results of mega mergers that took place within the last five years. Charter used to be a small regional cable provider with limited access to high speed infrastructure. Now that is a thing of the past since
Spectrum and Cox have seen a considerable growth throughout the past few years. Cox seems to have improved and committed to providing broadband speeds and better customer service experiences., while Charter has gained a larger national footprint.
Spectrum (Charter), Xfinity (Comcast) and Cox are all major cable providers offering similar packages and features with some small differences. How does one decide which one is the best?
When shopping for cable service provider you should check their customizable packages, the technological features supported, and obviously what’s written in fine print. Another important thing is to decide whether or not you are going to buy your own router for Comcast, Time Warner or Cox. You can save a lot of money in a long run with a small upfront investment rather than paying a rental fee to your ISP.
Nowadays most of those who try to choose a cable service provider are more concerned about the Internet speeds offered rather than the channel packages or lineups. The Internet has become a necessity, therefore it has priority over the rest of the services provided.
In order to help you have a better idea of their offerings, we made a comparison based on the internet services offered by these three cable service providers.
Comcast is certainly a winner when it comes to Internet speeds. Xfinity offers a speed range of 10 Mbps up to 300Mbps (download) and 2.0 Mbps up to 25 Mbps (upload).
Spectrum and Cox were known as the slowest top-tier providers in the nation. They lost a lot of customers to their competitors because of their lack of commitment to consistent speeds upgrades. Nowadays Spectrum’s services and TV packages are more accessible. Also the lack of broadband download cap is a big plus.
Currently Spectrum’s Internet service offers speeds of either 60 Mbps or 100 Mbps, which are great for streaming videos online, providing enough to support all the devices you have connected in your household. Though it doesn't reach Xfinity’s unmatched speeds.
As for Cox, it seems that he has improved his speed performance. In addition to a highly affordable 5 Mbps "Starter" tier, the company offers speed tiers of 15 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 100 Mbps. These tiers are cheaper than Spectrum’s offering, largely due to the greater number of speed tiers overall. Cox speed range is from up to 15Mbps (Cox Internet Essential) to up to 300 Mbps (Cox Internet Ultimate)
It’s a challenging task to say who is the best cable provider. Comcast has the faster speeds, but they are more expensive than the rest of the competitors.. Cox has more affordable packages, but competes well with the low- and mid-range offered by Comcast. The only real winner is the customer who gets to benefit from having higher speeds at lower prices.
There is not a huge difference between the cable companies in terms of channel lineups and packages. They all offer a virtual list of channels, with Spectrum having the highest number of digital channels offered. Each one of the three companies has a basic cable plan, where only broadcast networks are offered to customers in exchange for a minimal monthly fee.
Spectrum is definitely a winner! It offers only three packages including far more channels, inclusions and a lower price than its competitors. In addition, the base tier includes all of the most popular broadcast and cable networks, while the base package offered by Comcast’s Xfinity includes only a bundle of channels. Spectrum’s mid-tier package includes HBO and Showtime.
Before signing up with any cable company, shop around, check online what is available in area, and decide what suits you best. Spectrum and Cox are more affordable than Comcast Xfinity, which might seem highly-priced. Cox and Spectrum offer great value packages and better prices, but keep in mind everything is local. It is normal that in competitive markets, prices are stable and accessible, while in a non-competitive market, the subscribers need to pay more and get less.
● Spectrum - from $39.99( Charter Spectrum Internet) to $89.97 (Triple Play - includes TV, internet and Phone services)
As strange as it may sound, it appears that when it comes to customer support, none of cable companies is doing well. According to the recent rankings, it looks more like a “race to the bottom”. They are competing on who’s offering the worse service.
The company's’ policy of keeping the cost of customer support low, is detrimental to the business and also to the customers. Also the lack of longer customer support hours, employing outsourced customer agents, the language barrier are only a few of the problems that Spectrum and Xfinity customers complain about.
Unfortunately all of three cable companies (Comcast, Spectrum and Cox) offer a terrible customer service. Major customer satisfaction surveys shown that they need to improve their service. Though it will be fair to mention that in past years we noted that Cox and Spectrum ranked a few steps higher. That may be due to the domestic phone support offered by Cox, a complete installation experience, and in-home troubleshooting via its set top boxes and Cox approved modems that can address many issues.
It’s a good thing that most of the subscribers don’t base their choice on the company’s customer service reputation.
Spectrum is the only one who decided to focus more on the customer service experience. Spectrum has improved the installation process, troubleshooting and has come up with new package changes.
Xfinity struggles as well to improve its reputation from a customer service standpoint. Its new policies during the installation process are somehow better, but the customers are also left to deal with the language barrier and the unanticipated costs. Needless to say that this approach does not help changing company’s bad customer support experience.
It was a light day in Blue Jays Land as just the Dunedin Blue Jays, Bluefield Blue Jays and GCL Blue Jays were in action with a rain out in the DSL and they put up a 3-1 record.
After shutting out the Clearwater Threshers on Monday, the Dunedin Blue Jays did it again, beating up on their neighbours 6-0 on Tuesday for their eighth win in a row. Connor Eller went 5 2/3 with five hits allowed, striking out four to pick up his fourth win while Jonathan Cheshire tossed two innings, allowing a hit and stranding two runners. Jackson McClelland threw the final 1 1/3 innings, giving up a hit but striking out three.
David Jacob hit his fourth home run of the year, going 1/2 with a walk, a hit by pitch and two runs scored. Rodrigo Orozco was 2/4 with a double and two RBI, scoring a run and Riley Adams was 2/4 with an RBI. Brock Lundquist drove in a run, going 1/4 with a double and Yeltsin Gudino also had a double, going 1/3 with an RBI.
The Bluefield Blue Jays got off to a hot start, scoring four times in the first inning but they weren’t able to score again as they lost 6-4 to the Princeton Rays. D.J. Neal drove in a pair of runs, going 2/5 with a triple and a run while Hagen Danner also drove in two runs, going 1/2 with a double before getting hit by a pitch and coming out of the game. Rafael Lantigua was 2/4 as were Cal Stevenson who added a run, a walk and a stolen base and so was Dominic Abbadessa who was 2/4 with a run and a stolen base.
Claudio Galva went six innings, allowing four runs (three earned) on eight hits (including two home runs) and one walk with four strikeouts. Adams Cuevas threw two innings, giving up two runs on five hits.
The GCL Blue Jays opened up a double header against the GCL Braves by finishing their suspended game from June 30, tying the game with a run in the top of the seventh before pushing it to 12 innings and winning 7-5. Addison Barger was on base four times, going 2/4 with two walks and a run while Jordan Groshans was 2/5 with a walk and a run. Warnel Valdez was also on base three times, going 2/4 with two doubles, a walk, an RBI and three runs. Steward Berroa was 2/4 with a double and an RBI. Gabriel Moreno and Troy Squires each drove in a run.
Mitch McKown had started (before being promoted to Bluefield and then to Vancouver), tossing a scoreless first inning and Roither Hernandez allowed four runs on three hits (including a home run) and two walks in 2/3 of an inning before Brennan Price took over for 1 1/3 innings of scoreless ball. Elixon Caballero struck out five in 2 2/3 innings, walking one and Luis Alvarez provided 1 1/3 innings of perfect relief, striking out one. Nicolas Medina went four innings, giving up an unearned run on two hits and two walks with three strikeouts and Gaudy Ramirez got the save, striking out two.
Juan Diaz was dominant on the mound as the GCL Blue Jays shut out the GCL Braves in their regularly scheduled game, beating the 11-0. Diaz tossed six scoreless innings, allowing just a hit and a walk with five strikeouts. Williams Moreno allowed only a hit with two strikeouts in two innings and Luis Alvarez finished it off, giving up a hit in the ninth.
Dalton Pompey started, going 0/2 with a walk before coming out of the game for Jose Abel Hernandez who was 1/2 with a double, an RBI, two runs and a stolen base. Leonardo Jimenez had a pair of hits including a double and three RBI while Joseph Reyes hit his first home run of the year, going 2/4 with a double, an RBI and two runs. Hector Guerrero had two hits and a walk, scoring twice and Addison Barger was 2/4 with an RBI and two runs. Catcher Francisco Ruiz was 1/3 with a double, a walk, an RBI and a run.
An outstanding polished gem quality rose quartz crystal point from Brazil that has a generator termination. Size: 1 1/4" long x 1 1/8" wide x 2 1/4" tall.
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