Jenn received her first t-shirt when she was just a few hours old. Actually, it was a onesie, It said "Life Begins At Mount Vernon Hospital". I still have it packed away with her first birthday dress, her first pair of shoes, her favorite pair of jeans that had rhinestones around the pockets that she called her "golden pants".. She would beg me to wear them for days on end......how she loved those jeans. In the box is also a pair of hand me down jeans that her 4 older boy cousins wore with a rainbow on the back pocket. There are other memento's of her life packed in that box or in the back of a closet. A First Communion dress and veil, a winter coat made by a dear friend when we couldn't afford the expensive coat Jenn's only other cousin on the Pizzolongo side was wearing courtesy of Grandma (at the time it cost over $100 and to me that could have easily been a million dollars), a lion tamers cape made by Nannie for Jenn's kindergarten graduation (in black and shocking pink with sequins around the collar), a girl scout sash and vest(with all her badges, pins and awards), an Orangetown Patriot cheerleading jacket, a Pearl River Swim Team jacket and on and on.
A few weeks ago, I saw a website where you send them your old t-shirts and they make a quilt from them. This company was very reasonable compared to some of the other companies I had heard about that make these kinds of quilts. I also faced the fact I would never be able to accomplish such a task.......I still have a very pretty picture I started to embroider when I was pregnant with Jenn..... that is unfinished .....and Jenn will be 30 next week so you can see where I am going with the chance of finishing a quilt.......
I wanted to surprise Jenn with the quilt for Christmas. First, I had to figure out where she kept all her t-shirts, how to get them without her knowing and how could I decide which t-shirts should make the cut (no pun intended) and which ones were left off. I finally decided I had to tell her what I was trying to do. Jenn loved the idea and on Saturday we spent a few hours looking through her t-shirts and cutting them apart.
T-shirts......
They brought back so many memories.......elementary school graduation, a sleep over at the Liberty Science Center (where my partner in crime, Patty Fitzgerald and I endured a long night of NOT sleeping on the floor of the Insect Exhibit/Room...ugh) but we did get to see the most amazing sunrise across the Hudson River over lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center, our first Breast Cancer Walk in Central Park with Jenn's first grade teacher and a lot of other parents there to support her in her battle, Camp Bernie (a 3 day camping trip for the middle schooler's as they come together as a group for the first time from three elementary schools), high school swim teams, church youth group trips including one to see Pope John Paul II in Canada, family reunions, Chi Omega sorority t-shirts ( well I needed to see something for the dues I paid), Winthrop University t-shirts along with Yankees, NY Giants and USC Gamecock shirts will all be part of the quilt.
Most of the t-shirts I bought Jenn were as souvenirs or for memory sake and cost less than a lot of the other souvenirs I could have bought her. I did not have the intention at the time of using them for anything other than her to wear and eventually throw out. And once she hit college......it seems like they get a t-shirt a week just for showing up at class!!
By the time we did our initial count, Jenn had over 100 yes I said 100 t-shirts. We sorted them by must keep, maybe keep, can I donate it and good Lord throw it out. We needed 49 to make the queen size quilt. After a coupe of rounds were we down to 3 piles.....use for the quilt, donate to Good Will and pitch it. The pitch it pile was relatively small. Good Will was the recipient of over 50 t-shirts (although I am not sure who wants to wear a t-shirt that says Winthrop beat Charleston Southern ...... but then again I was with Jenn one day when she wanted to buy a shirt that said "Thompson Family Reunion".....we know no one named Thompson and are not related to anyone named Thompson but she thought it would be funny to buy and wear....LOL). Finally we had the 49......we cut them apart and counted and recounted to make sure we had the right number. They are now sitting in a stack ready to be mailed this week. The quilt will be back to me before Christmas. I told Jenn she would not see the finished product until Christmas.......I myself can't wait to see it either!!!! It is a gift she will always have......yes I know someday it will end up in a closet with other things other things piled on top of it but from time to time I hope she will look at it and show her children and know she had one hell of a good time growing up.
I wish I had something like that with all of my memories there to see but either my parents couldn't afford the t-shirt from an event or they weren't given away as freely as they are now.....
Well as my girl gets ready to turn 30 next Saturday (how the heck did that happen? I just put her on the bus to kindergarten yesterday....), I am glad we spent part of a day looking at her past and putting her memories together into something permanent. We laughed at some of the shirts, I got teary over some of them (are you surprised at that???LOL) and some reminded us of events we hadn't thought of in a long time.
Yes, in our children's generation we can tell their life story in t-shirts. They are like the photographs our parents took of us growing up that we now treasure. I am glad I am a saver and I am glad Jenn is one too. If we weren't savers there would be no quilt.
I will make sure to share a picture of the finished product after Jenn opens it on Christmas. It is a gift I am as excited about giving as she is to receive!!
See you next week......
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