Memory Quilt!

I have returned!  Ok, so I had all these grand plans for posts all through the Christmas season.  Pictures taken, posts composed (in my head), ready to go.  Then boom.  We visited my family for Thanksgiving, then my husband had finals week, then December came, I had a couple up and ready to go, then I got a cold... and it laid me out flat, then it turned into a sinus infection, yuck!  Then on top of that I had this quilt that I suddenly remembered I was doing for my husband's Cousin for Christmas.  Then we helped remodel a guest house the week before Christmas... So I am soooo sorry!  Next year will be better, promise!  

But Hey!  Want to see an awesome memory quilt!

So my husband's Cousin approached me about making this quilt a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I had just finished the quilt for my Grandma, which had gone over so well, that I jumped on the opportunity!  I got the stuff right before we left for Thanksgiving and put it off until the last second... oops!

She wanted me to make two blankets, one full-sized and one twin-sized from a crate of 3-18 month clothes.  But the more I thought about it the more stressed I became!  Which the other quilt I did, I used a 8in square for my base and it was easy, the shirts were big.  There were so many variations on sizes this time!  There were shirts, pants, overalls, bibs, blankets, and sleepers!  once I chose a square size it was easy, but that was the SCARIEST decision to make!  What if I messed up and ruined all of these clothes?!?!?

So I ended up going with a 7 1/2 in square, which worked shockingly well!  Almost all of the clothes I could make fit into the square.  The ones that didn't went into a different pile and I pieced them together.  In the end I only pieced together maybe 15-20 total!

Next I laid out the quilts.  I did my best to have a 'patterned' piece next to a 'plain' piece.  (patterned being any piece with a logo or major design)

The big quilt was for my husband's cousin and her husband (mom and dad) and the smaller was for his cousin's mom (grandma) so the big quilt has all the 'mom' & 'dad' designs and the smaller has all the 'grandma' designs

The smaller quilt

I tied the quilt in each of the corners and used the back to bind the edges.

The bigger quilt

They loved both of them! 

Thoughts on the quilt:  

*Use a rotary cutter to cut the squares, seriously!  Do it!

*Make sure you have space to lay it all out, it is harder than you'd think to get it just right!

*It takes a lot!  I got 2 squares out of each item on average.  I used the scraps to make too small ones big enough

*I'm not big on quilting in general, I don't really have the patience for it, but this was worth it and lots of fun.  That being said, I don't really think I'll do it again real soon...  It took a lot of work to do it!  But it was worth every minute!

Have fun!  Be sure to show me your memory quilts, pillows, or other ways you remember people you care about!