In memory of Dave

Most of my quilting time this year has been spent on making Memory Quilts from my dear Brother-in-law's shirts and pants - mainly jeans. He died last year - January 17, 2018.
My dear BIL Dave

Dave and Sherry
The "clan" providing comic relief at the request of the photographer (my daughter, Dave's niece)
 After the four (grown) children, (10) grand- and (3 + 1 on the way) great grandchildren had taken all of the things (shirts, ties, etc.) they wanted, I finally (in April) said I would take the shirts and work with those. Later I also took his jeans and some of his slacks. Later Sherry found additional flannel and heavier shirts and jean jackets which I used for the pillows.

I spent a lot of time "de-boning" his shirts, and cut a LOT of 6 1/2" and 4 1/2" circles from the jeans and pants. I cut mainly the darker shirts into 6-1/2" x 8-1/2" patches. At first I tried cutting the shirt pockets into the patches, but it was "wasting" too much fabric, so I ended up removing most of the pockets. The light colored shirts I cut into 1-1/2" x 8-1/2" patches and made uneven rail fence blocks that ended up 8" square finished.  From the scraps of the shirts I cut 4-1/2" and 2-1/2" squares for the pillows. I made 4 patches from the smaller squares and used the larger squares as they were.

I made a total of 5 quilts and 15 pillows. I printed out special labels for each of the quilts and used a different label for the pillows which I fused on. The pillows are made with shirt fronts for the back of the pillow including pockets. The Quilts:

The pillows:
15 pillows - 1 extra
a few pillow backs












The labels:
These are on each quilt


















I was able to make binding from the scraps of various shirts, so the only fabric added was the backings - seen under the labels. 

This may seem like "generic" reporting, but believe me when I say that these shirts also absorbed a lot of tears as I made them with so much love for my dearest sister-in-law, my nieces, nephews and their children. I didn't plan it this way, but the packages for the niece and nephew that live in New York arrived 1-17-2019, the anniversary of Dave's death. They were so grateful to have them that day.

If you're still reading - No, I don't make quilts like this for anyone else. It is a difficult labor of love. If you need such a quilt, I generally refer to Quilted Memories in Overland Park, KS. They do this as a business. There are other quilters that make these who are easily found with a little Googling.

Happy Quilting,
Becky

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