This was another memory quilt that was particularly loaded with emotion. A cousin asked me to make two memory quilts from her husband’s clothes for her children. I’d grown up seeing my second cousins off and on throughout the years, but it had been way too long since we’d last met up. In fact, the last time I’d seen them was when my boy cousin was going through his “girls are icky” phase, and he wouldn’t talk to me. Since he was one of the few cousins close to my age, you’ll understand when I tell you that it was YEARS before I forgave him this slight.
I’m 35 now. I suppose I’m over it.
I guess.
Anyhow, when their mother, my beloved cousin (who has never gone through a phase where girls were icky) asked me to make memory quilts, of course I agreed. When she gave me the clothes, I noticed that there were no t-shirts at all. The bags were a huge lot of collared dress shirts.
Well we looked at a lot of options for how to incorporate dress shirts into a memory quilt, and in the end we decided there was something about the collar on the shirt that needed to stay. That being said, did you know that collared shirts weren’t meant to lie flat? They were a bit of a doozy to finally get right, but I managed to get it situated in the end, including a quick stitch down the front to ensure the shirt front didn’t open up. I used patches and other parts of the shirts to make the borders and sashing intersections.
I did add in three pictures for each quilt.
I have been assured by the same guy cousin that his quilt gets a lot of use and has held up well to its constant use. That always makes me happy to hear that 1. a quilt I made is regularly used and 2. it’s holding up well.
In the end, I tried to do honor to the father’s memory and make sure his shirts reflected him. It was a different challenge with all those curves, collars, and buttons, but I loved the end result!
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