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.
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| My dear BIL Dave |
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| Dave and Sherry |
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| 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:
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| 15 pillows - 1 extra |
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| a few pillow backs |
The labels:
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| 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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