Memory Quilts

The last couple of months have been sad ones for our family. On September 30, my mother-in-law passed away, then just 13 days later, on October 13, my husband's grandmother passed away. (You can read about them on my "Family Life" blog - you'll have to go back to older posts to see them all.) When I first really started sewing again, I went to Craftster, a website where people post things they have made and you can get great ideas there. I saw a post on there where a lady had made some quilts for a family who had lost their father, and the quilts were made out of shirts of the father. I thought that was such a neat idea! So after my mother-in-law passed away, I asked my father-in-law (FIL) if I could take some of her clothes to make us quilts out of. He said yes, and I brought home a bunch of her jeans, shirts, and her sweatshirts that she wore often. I fill up three Wal-Mart bags. We were home (from Nebraska) for less than 48 hours (we stayed for a wedding after her funeral) when we were notified that Grandma passed away, so it was another trip out of state (this time to Illinois). So I asked my FIL if I could take some of her clothes, too, to add to the quilts. I didn't take as many of hers as I did my MIL's, but at least I had some.

So this week I finally started to cut up the clothes.

These are the squares I cut out of MIL's clothes:


These are the squares I cut out of Grandma's clothes:


I divided everything up into six piles - that is how many quilts I'm going to make.


I decided to work on my FIL's first. I knew I wanted to use this sweatshirt for his:


So I took one pile and started sticking them on my design wall to start FIL's quilt - I put the sweatshirt in the middle. He's tall, so I knew I wanted it to be extra long. Here is the design before I started sewing:


And this morning I finished sewing it together:


His quilt top ended up being 47" by 71", which will be good for him. The rest I'm going to make won't be that long. I didn't have enough fabric from the clothes to make the whole quilt, so I had to add some squares of jeans, Todd's old shirts and other fabrics out of my stash.

I'm not sure when I'll get to the rest of the quilts. I also have to decide if I want to complete FIL's quilt (sandwich, quilt or tie and bind), or if I want to get all the tops done and then complete later. I'll have to see what I have as far as supplies (batting and backing). I'm also starting a new job on Nov. 12 working at home, so I won't have quite as much time to work on them, it will just be evenings and weekends.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week. Today I'm going to take a break from sewing and go to a bookstore to read the new PostSecret book that came out last month. I don't want to spend the money right now to buy it, so I think I'll go to B&N, get a coffee and read it. Maybe I'll get a gift card to a bookstore for Christmas from someone (hint hint!!!) so I can buy it later. lol

TGIF!!!