Art & Inspiration What to do with those old hot rod T-shirts

I thought about saving this 'till the Friday art show but I wanted to do it now. I was doing some spring cleaning and found a plastic bin on a basement shelf marked "garage jammies,t-shirts" It just happens the Mrs found a really bad painting found at a yard sale. It was terrible but came with a super nice frame.
Those t-shirts numbered 14 and I picked one of my old favorites.
I took the nasty painting out of the frame and cut the shirt to fit the painting, turned around backward. strretched the T-shirt around the painting and used "fabric fusion" to glue the shirt to the painting.
My trusty dog, Bailey supervised. I popped the backwards painting back into the frame and voila!
If your sweetie won't let you hang the art in the living room, grace your garage/shop with it. Now, I have 13 more of 'em to do.

 

My wife is making a quilt out of T-shirt’s that belonged to her cousin’s son who passed away so that could be an option. Or a car cover?

 

There's a gal here in town who makes quilts from hot rodding and old car club T-shirts with her quilting bee friends. They are NICE, often sold to benefit charities or given away as prizes at big car events. Should be something like that in your town?

 

I did that with an old T-shirt that had a great image of a blown 392 Hemi on it. I just stretched it over a mounted canvas that I got at Michael’s craft store without a frame. It had a place of honor in my living room (until I got married) Some T-shirt art is just too good to use as a rag.

 

I had a bunch of old t-shirts, sweat shirts and hats that were drag racing related. My wife is a quilter and I asked her if she could make a quilt of these items. She sliced and diced all the fabric from these items and came up with this wonderful quilt I have as a wall hanging in my bedroom.

 

Door panels in your hot rods...

 

Car cover....My wife and I are big supporters of the local thrift stores. We buy a lot of crappy paintings with great frames. Jenny is a super artist so they never go to waste!

 

Picture idea is cool. I'm another one with a quilt.

 

Great Idea

 

I had enough to make a engine cover as I don't use a hood. I keep the engine covered when in the garage and it seems that the polished aluminum parts stay polished longer............

 

I just wear mine out

 

Also have about a half dozen quilts, and she made one as a bedliner for our Cameo that was shaped to go around the wheel wells. We usually raffle off a quilt for the Havasu Deuces show also. She's working on making a bedspread for the spare bedroom as we speak.

 

I used them for seat covers on my golf cart.

 

One of my friends had his quilted and it now is a seat cover to protect the pricey seat underneath it. He found out that sun attacked his and the material wasn't as good as he thought.

 

Learn to weld. Takes care of mine.

 

I see you have an Americruise '93 shirt.....the first year for it. Still got your red jacket? I'm so picky about mine I only wear it on nice days...........dry clean only

 

Have to brag (what? someone from Texas would brag?) but my teenage granddaughter and my 11 year old grandson both love those things--I've given them several and they think its really cool to have super old tshirts with hotrods on 'em to wear around the 'hood. Just never ask what year or kind of car that is.
( just as a thought, if there's a kid or kids in your 'hood that likes hot rods or mech. thingys, then they might really love to have a couple tshirts to show off)

 

Ha, ha, me too!
I have several that I guard with my life, including the last two from my old shop. For Christmas, my wife had a small run of my old T-shirts done for me and the family so we could actually wear them. Bless her heart.

 

@Rocky Yes still have it along with window sticker and entry cards. I also have one from 96 . Had to buy it though.
@Jeff Norwell That's pretty cool. We had one made for our first car show.

 

I wear mine until print has faded and belly button farts has blown the front out to the point of becoming shop rags.

 

Age, battery's & welding do most of mine in, OH forgot to mention body widining, yeah mine. ha ha. Not funny.

 

Hello,

If the imprint is not too large on the back, then the rest of the old T-Shirt that has been washed inside/out for ages makes a wonderful household cleaning rag. My wife has been using my old hot rod shirts, old white t-shirts and old surf company shirts that have seen their days reborn as a nice cleaning rag. Specifically for stainless steel surfaces.

Wipe on wipe off is the style and these old t-shirts that have been through the zillion wash/dry cycles are the perfect old rags for a new use. The reason for washing them inside out is to preserve the contact and rough/tumble action when washing t-shirts that have large printed designs from cracking. No, they will not melt in the dryer and get imprinted on the plain surfaces. Wearing t-shirts just seems to fit the casual lifestyle here in our neck of the coast. But, not just your normal T-Shirt but high quality t-shirts like this one from the HAMB coffers for the pandemic times… no stretchy necks on this shirt.

Over the years, the cotton fibers just seem to get softer and feels more absorbent. But, she started using rags we bought at the local hardware store. But, we had a ready made product flowing out of several drawers that were no longer in the daily wear lineup. So, now, they have a job do perform and they do it well. Currently, some of the rag pieces are from 1980 surf company t-shirts. They last a long time and get thrown into hot water wash cycle to preserve the clean surfaces.

Jnaki

I do the tearing apart of the XL size T-Shirt and then I cut them down to about a 8 x 8 surface. It there is an imprint of sorts, the less print shows up on the rag, the better the surface is for using it on a smooth surface like stainless steel. So, for the long run, my wife never has to buy rags for her cleaning projects again. She has a built in storage supply of my old t-shirts washed/dried a zillion times for a nice soft absorbent cloth for cleaning.

She no longer asks to go buy a bag of rags. She just asks if I have any old t-shirts for her supply. If you want to preserve your imprinted designs from new, turn your T-Shirt inside out and dry on low tumble heat. On some machines, a hot setting can melt thick ink. If you don’t overload your wash and dry, the normal heat tumble gets the cloth nice and soft. YRMV

 

Mine get so grease stained up I have to turn them into shop rags.

 

I have an Americruise '93 shirt, the only year it was in Springfield, Mo. I think. We were there in our '57 Chevy.

 

My wife says i have too many car t- shirts (2.5 closets full) so i gave a few to my grand son but still have alot. She told me she will make a quilt someday so i am just waiting. She does belong to a quilt club so it could happen. Hope i haven't kicked the bucket before.

 

By the time I quit wearing mine they're not worth doing much with except rags.

 

I, too, have some of those Holy Shirts, as in, "Holy Crap, that's hot" . Spray some anti-splatter on your shirt and then you can frame it later.

 

Mine always end up being polishing/grease rags. I never thought about preserving them.

Lots of neat idea here.