Beauty is in the Eye

I'm working on a few quilts right now, all custom orders, and the one that has consumed me the most has been a t-shirt quilt that was ordered by a young lady for her (now) ex-boyfriend, who happened to have been a high school football star.

Generally, I don't think much about the aesthetics and artistic merits of t-shirt quilts. Someone mails me their old, sentimental for whatever reason t-shirts, we choose sashing fabrics and I make them into a quilt. This one in particular was interesting, partially due to its story- the client is only 17. She and her boyfriend dated for the last 3 years, and she started to make him this quilt, but stopped when they broke up. She was nice enough to not just dump the pile of cut up shirts on his doorstep, but found me online and actually enlisted my services to do what she felt she could no longer do herself, finish his quilt to preserve his high school memories, which, in her words, he deserves.

The school colors on this one are funny...red and green. I sent her fabric combo options, she chose, and away I went. Anything I thought about the quilt was in the story behind it, in the mathematics involved with dealing with her having cut the squares differing sizes (PITA), and making sure I did a good job. Any beauty was lost on me. When I sent her the picture of the top, to make sure she liked it before it was forevermore untakeapartable her response was overwhelmingly positive. Lots of exclamation points and accolades...so many in fact, I was a little shocked. I mean, she sent me these t-shirts. She picked the fabric I sent in her color preference. What was the big deal? What on earth was she expecting? Seemed too enthusiastic for the situation.

Later that day, a friend was over and saw the finished top. She couldn't stop saying how pretty it was. Last night, my husband was helping me sandwich it, as it's just a bit too large to do myself, and started waxing poetic about how beautiful it was. He was particularly struck by how a bunch of old, worn t-shirts could be spun around and attached to fabric and made into something useful, keepworthy, and artistic all at the same time. He's seen a million quilts in his life, including every single one I've ever made, but this was different. It was late, I was tired, but I was so overcome with the sweetness of the absolute sincerity of his words that, well, I had to tweet about it. That's gotta mean something. :)

It had me thinking all day though, about how I dismiss these quilts as more practical, less artistic, than my others. I love helping people preserve their memories, but it isn't necessarily artistically fulfilling. But it seems like I may need to rethink that.