Braves T-shirt Quilt

This quilt was made from an unexpected gift! A friend called me, said she was going through her house and cleaning it out, and asked if I wanted some shirts. Some were from the 1996 Olympic games when Georgia hosted. Growing up in Georgia, I cannot begin to convey how much the Olympics occupied my youth from when it was announced at Atlanta would host until the actual games in ’96. I still have the Olympic shirts and will make a quilt with them at some point.

The other half of the shirt-treasure hoard was a lot of Braves shirts leading up to when they won the World Series in 1995. I loved how four of them were reproduced images from the front of the Atlanta Journal Constitution with the big headlines and iconic images of the team. Just like the Olympics, I remember the Braves being a huge deal and them winning a cause for celebration, especially as they’d come just shy of it several times. These shirts brought back so many of those memories. My husband really really wanted them and was remiss when I let him know they were not meant for him.

In addition to the newspaper shirts and the official World Series shirt, I found two more generic Braves shirts, and I included a jersey from my own closet that I knew I would never wear again. It was 100% polyester, and the last time I’d worn it I was pregnant at a Braves games in 102 degree weather. No joyful memory association there – let me tell you….

I wanted the newspaper shirts to have the most attention, so I refused to crop them and instead let their size dictate the rest of the blocks. After that, the jersey dictated the size of the center row. I decided against using Braves trademarked fabric because of copyright reasons, and I went with a mottled red flannel instead.

When I put this on display in my craft fair booth, I had some fun at the expense of some of our more local shenanigans. It did eventually sell at one of the craft shows last fall.