My Memory Quilts
When my Mom passed away back in 2013 I, fortunately, had the presence of mind to keep all her blouses. They were always colorful and a lot of them were made out of cotton. So a couple of years ago I decided to make some lap quilts for my sister, my brother and myself using those blouses.
My Mom was a tiny lady so her blouses were very small and therefore didn’t have lots of fabric in them. Because they were small and also because I wanted to make three quilts out of them, I needed to cut the fabric into small 3 ½ inch squares. I then assemble them into 9-patches. So all three of our quilts had those lovely, colorful fabrics in patchwork squares!
Next I chose a different color scheme for each of us. Pink was the color I associated with Mom so mine was pink and white. My sister said she thought of blue when she thought of Mom so hers was blue with a touch of light red. And my brother’s was a light brown with a rich teal border because those were the colors in his living room.
Then, using the chosen colored fabrics, I cut squares the same size as the 9-patch squares and assembled them by alternating the patches and the plain squares. I added two borders to make the quilts a bit bigger. The backings were made of coordinating colors of flannel for warmth and comfort.
I quilted my own first because I had never attempted free-motion quilting before and wanted to make the mistakes in my own first. It wasn’t bad but I didn’t like the looks of the design so for the other two quilts I used my walking foot and made straight line grids across the squares. They turned out really nice. My sister and my brother loved theirs! I use mine all the time to pull over my lap in the evenings. My cat, Sammy, loves it too!
Memory quilts can be any size and any design you want. The main ingredient is the fabric from a loved one’s clothing, something that makes you smile when you see it! They don’t have to be deceased. It could be some cute little dresses or clothes your kids wore when they were babies.
Memory Quilt make wonderful thoughtful gifts even to yourself!
