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Hello! My name is Megan...

                         

I am a mom to a 1 year old daughter and I love to travel, try new things, and make amazing memories along the way. I am also an engineer, an MBA graduate, and a fabric hoarding crafty quilter. What makes me happiest (aside from a happy daughter) is being able to combine all of my skills to create something unique to help others preserve their own special memories.

My Grandma taught me to sew about 20 years ago, and I quickly became a fabric hoarder, occasionally using some of it to make a quilt or two. :-)

In 2012, my sister-in-law asked me if I made T-shirt quilts. At that time, I hadn't made one, and it honestly made me a little nervous. These are shirts that someone had saved because they have special meaning to them. What if I made a mistake when I cut them up?? Then I would ruin irreplaceable shirts! But I decided to give it a try. 

I took an engineering approach to this new problem I had undertaken. First, I did a little research on how other people had made a T-shirt quilt. I was given a variety of shirts, all with different sizes of images that could be used. Some people just cut all of the shirts the same size, such as 15x15 inches. But if I did that, then some of the images would be cut off and others would have a lot of blank space. I decided to turn it into a puzzle - each image would be a different size, and I would piece them all together into one quilt. 

Of course, I couldn't just start cutting shirts without a drawing! So I made a digital design without cutting any of the shirts. This gave me a drawing to work from so that I new exactly how to cut each image to ensure that they would all fit together, and it also allowed the customer to see what her quilt would like before I cut all of her shirts. She was able to change the positions of some of the shirts so that they better told her story. The extra challenge for my first T-shirt quilt was that the customer wanted shirts on the front and the back! I said "challenge accepted" and made my first T-shirt quilt. 

     

Since then, I have made dozens of T-shirt quilts out of all different types of clothing. I have also made pillows and teddy bears at customers' requests. 

In an entrepreneurship class I took as part of my MBA, a guest speaker came to talk about a company that was making fabric out of recycled plastic bottles. I was instantly intrigued and started learning more about the fabric and the environmental issues surrounding the fashion and textile industries. Making cool things out of old clothes is a good step towards helping the environment, but I wanted to take it a step further and start using recycled and organic fabrics where possible. I have even found recycled polyester batting that can be used in the quilts. Since eco-friendly aren't found in most fabric stores, I decided to start selling them myself. And that is how Riverview Fabrics came to be!

I have greatly expanded my fabric inventory, so much so that I can't manage the sales on my website and Etsy shop at the moment, so all fabric sales are being directed to https://www.etsy.com/shop/RiverviewFabrics. If you're interested in a T-shirt quilt, just contact me directly!