How Do You Deal With A Clothing Disaster?

     Have you ever had a favorite shirt that got ruined? My husband has a pullover that I call my boyfriend shirt. Sometimes I take it out of his closet and put it on. When he sees me wearing it he says he was going to wear it that day. It's a running joke in our family. One day a couple of months ago I got a spot of grease on the front of it so I took out the OxiClean and sprayed some on before throwing it in the washing machine with the other laundry. After I took the laundry out of the dryer and sorted the clothes, a large part of the front of our favorite shirt was bleached out. The OxiClean had never done that before. It's not supposed to do that!
     When my husband came home, I said, "Well, you know when something bad happens, you have to count all the good things in your day." Then I showed him the shirt and told him what I did. I kiddingly asked if he put bleach in the OxiClean container. And you know what? He said maybe! He said he did put bleach in an empty OxiClean container to use in the garage and somehow it must have got put in the laundry room by mistake. But he never took off the label or relabeled it with "Bleach". Luckily, I didn't spray any of that bleach onto any other laundry that day. Here is that poor shirt.

My damaged boyfriend shirt

     I didn't want to throw away the shirt and my husband didn't want it anymore, so I decided to try some boro stitching on it. I cut out some patches from cotton fabrics I had and pinned them on. And I picked out some embroidery floss. When I get time in between my homework assignments I stitch on the patches. As the stitching gets added, it blends the patches into the fabric of the shirt. The stitches are meant to show a lot and the bleached out part of the shirt is meant to show, also. 

stitching continues and will change colors

     And the shirt will be all mine (maybe).

     The other thing I've been stitching is a small bag that used to belong to my father. He carried his golf tees in it. He passed away in 1993. I've had the bag sitting around and not being used for anything and decided to honor it. 

Golf tee bag

As stitching is progressing on one side

     So that is how I dealt with this particular clothing disaster. Incorporate part of the disaster into the artwork of the stitchery. I think it will work. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their blogs so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.