By Jena Howie
A Waco resident and Baylor fan has found a way to hold on to special memories without cluttering your closet with mementos- especially T-shirts. We wear T-shirts all the time to show support for various activities and for some reason, we tend to hold onto our T-shirts for way too long. They pile up in a drawer over the years, and then we can’t imagine tossing them because of the memories each one holds.
Barbara Hornburg has created a small business by taking old T-shirts and turning them into beautiful quilts. Each square in one of Hornburg’s quilts is the front of a T-shirt or the back of a jersey that the quilt recipient has deemed memorable or important.
“It started just as something I did for my family,” Hornburg said. “My grandsons played ice hockey in Colorado and wanted to somehow keep all of their old jerseys. Then my son was really into racing for a while, so I made him one, too.”
Since she started making quilts for her family, Hornburg has found that there is demand for her work elsewhere in the community. Just in the last year, she made more than twenty-one quilts for various people. Friend and Baylor alumna Betty Rogers Bryant ’58 asked her to make a quilt for the Baylor Alumni Association’s 2012 Spring Fling event by using shirts from past Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) tailgates. The theme for the 2012 Spring Fling was “Pieces of the Past, Fabrics of the Future,” and the event featured quilts made by alumni.
“Barbara is very artistic. She knows how to put things together and is very good in that way. She is really talented and does beautiful work,” Bryant said, who attends Sunday school with Hornburg.
The Baylor quilt Hornburg made for the alumni association is kept in the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center. It is often used as a decorative table topper at events and as a comforting office decoration for the staff members of the alumni association.
A quilt from Hornburg typically costs around $250, that reflects the hard work and careful consideration that goes into each one. Each quilt has a different story, different shirts, and a different meaning to the person who receives it.
“I do it because I love seeing the joy in a person’s face when they receive one of my quilts,” Hornburg says.
Hornburg also makes baby blankets, pillows, unique jean quilts, and memory quilts for deceased loved ones. If you are interested in purchasing a quilt, contact Barbara Hornburg by phone at (254) 644-6801 or by e-mail at granniesquilts@msn.com.
