This past April I was eating breakfast with my father and older brother in a hotel in Phoenix when an unusual piece of clothing caught my eye. As we were attending the local anime convention it would not have been unusual for any number of peculiar garments to be worn in public as part of a costume. However, this particular item did not gain my attention because of strange design. In fact, it was a plain button down shirt. This seemingly commonplace article of clothing interested me due to the fact that, as I told my brother, “I own that fabric.” And indeed, that very same textile currently resides in my collection along with two other variations of it.

This has not been my only strange encounter with someone else’s shirt. I have on at least one occasion gone up to complete strangers and asked them if they could give me their shirts when they were done with them simply because I liked the material. This strange request has its roots in what has been one of my hobbies for several years.

When I was eleven my grandmother came to visit. She quilts so we looked up several local quilt stores to take her to. As soon as I stepped into one of the stores I became enraptured by the designs and colors involved in the quilts. Very quickly I could be found walking through rows of fabric, touching and taking in each floral, batik, and flannel. I was interested in the process of making a quilt so my mother signed me up for a beginner’s class. Part of this class was picking out fabrics to use in the quilt. As I had never before done anything of the sort I was not quite sure what to do. Looking back on it, those first few fabrics I chose were nothing like the fabrics I use today. They were rather mild and completely different from the vibrant colors and patterns I currently use. However, this was the start of not only a hobby, but a rather large collection of fabric which quilters like to call a “stash.” As my copious amounts of fabric began to expand, I noticed that I preferred black, bright colors, and bold patterns, and that I rather disliked brown, white, and other dull shades.

The summer when I was fourteen found me for the first time at Quilt Camp in the Pines. It was there that I met a kindred spirit. One of the teachers that week was Freddy Moran, someone sixty years older than me but with the same love of color. This is not to say that she was the first quilter I met who had the same taste in fabric as I did. However, she has a saying which I hold in the same regard as “the one who dies with the most fabric wins.” Freddy has said on numerous occasions that “red is a neutral color and lime green is almost there.” I heartily agree. I enjoy sticking bright colors together, especially with black, and the majority of the time I manage to make the right combination.

When I was fifteen the unthinkable happened. I was working on a quilt with an Egyptian theme and I had to find a fabric to make a falcon with. I could only think of one color that would work. I felt like crying when I bought the first brown fabric I had ever had outside of a t-shirt. I got over it and it worked very well in the quilt, but it still pained me.

Everywhere I go I see potential fabric for a quilt. It is not just unknown people’s shirts, but hotel curtains and comforters. The patterns can be gorgeous, but more often than not I am met with disappointment due to the fact that the material is made not out of cotton, but out of polyester. In my school’s recent production of Bye Bye Birdie there was this brightly colored blanket used in a scene which would have been wonderful in a quilt. However, upon closer inspection it turned out that it was crocheted. Despite this, there is still plenty of wonderful quilting fabric for me to use, and I intend to do so.