If you've shopped at Old Navy any summer since 1994, you know the ritual. Memorial Day weekend hits, the front of the store fills with red, white, and blue, and the iconic Old Navy Flag Tee is back for another year.
Tracy from California's custom Old Navy Flag Tee quilt — featuring shirts from 2012, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, and more.
Meet Tracy: She Saved Every Old Navy Flag Tee — And Turned Them Into Something Incredible
You buy one for yourself. Maybe matching ones for the kids. You wear it to the cookout, the parade, the fireworks. Then it gets folded into a drawer with the one from last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.
That's exactly what happened to Tracy from California — except she didn't let those shirts sit forgotten. She sent them to us, and we turned more than a decade of 4th of July memories into the quilt above.
Why the Old Navy Flag Tee Is the Most Quilt-Worthy Shirt in America
The Old Navy Flag Tee isn't just a t-shirt. It's an American tradition that started in 1994, the year Old Navy was founded. For 30+ years, the brand has redesigned the flag tee every single summer — sometimes featuring all 50 states, sometimes the five U.S. territories, sometimes a brand-new tagline like "United States of All."
That's what makes the flag tee one of the most quilted shirts we see at Project Repat. Three things check every box for a great keepsake:
- Each shirt is dated. The year is usually printed right on the design, which means the quilt becomes a literal timeline of your family's summers.
- The shirts coordinate perfectly. Red, white, blue, gray, and the occasional pink or pastel — the palette is already a quilt.
- You have a lot of them. Most families end up with 8, 10, even 20+ flag tees over the years. That's plenty to fill a generous throw or full-bed quilt.
If you're nodding because there's a stack of Old Navy flag shirts sitting in a b