A T-Shirt Quilt Repair Project

A woman saw us at the Ocean Beach fair and startred talking about the custom t-shirt quilts.  Her best friend had passed away at an early age leaving her college-age daughter behind.  This woman is close with the daughter and when the daughter wanted a quilt of her mom's t-shirts with which to wrap herself for comfort, the woman went out to get one made.  The result was a disaster (I'm not going to post the before pictures) and in despair, she brought it to us to see what we could do to fix it for the daughter.  My mom is a master-fixer and the result has made the daughter very happy.  This is a large quilt and we got in most of the pieces we salvaged.  Have a project for us?  Let us know!  :-)

Pics of Finished Memory Quilts: MIL Clothes

Wanted to post a few pictures of the completed Memory Quilts we made from a family's beloved MIL's clothes. We ended up making 9 wall hangings. Working with adult clothes is more difficult than children's clothes because the colors, fabric designs, fabric weights are vastly different. It took alot of placing to make sure the quilt flowed. This client wasn't particular about the flow, but rather, using as many different pieces as possible.

Memory Quilt: Baby Quilt from Dad's Clothes

A sad story...my sister's friend's brother was terminally ill just as his first child was due to be born. He didn't live long enough to meet his son, but his sister gathered up a few pieces of his clothes and asked that we make a baby quilt from them for his newborn son. We only had 6 pieces of clothes with which to work, but that proved to be ok. And we chose a bright baby flannel for the outer border and back. This will be a great blanket for the baby and widow to have now and for the future. A sad story - but something memorable for his family.

Memory Quilts: CLOTHES

We met a couple at the Fair Harbor Pine Walk Fair, who saw our sample Memory Quilt made from my niece's baby clothes, and asked about some wall-hangings made of her mother-in-laws clothes. She had passed away 5 years ago and they clothes were sitting in a box - no one wanted to throw them out, but also didn't know what to do with them. She felt it was fate when she happened upon the fair and browsed the vendors for 10 minutes before hopping a water taxi to Ocean Beach. When she dropped all the clothes, we went through her requests and specifications - at the fair she thought she'd like three quilts. At the drop-off, she ordered SIX!! Two weeks later, she upped it to NINE. While it is harder to coordinate adult clothes than baby clothes, the project has been fun and challenging! Here are the layout pictures of 7 - we spent days making sure the fabrics were all different and looked like a coherent piece when sewn together. By now, all the tops are sewn together and one is completed!

Memory Quilts: Part 2

Here are pictures of two of the three finished Memory Quilts from my college friend's stash of her boys baby clothes. One is done in blues and whites, and the other in blues and reds. The third we're working on will be blues and greens - we're still trying to find the right combination of fabrics for the top.

In case you may not see at first glance, if you look at some of the squares, the clothes were re-worked to enable a 'square' - the front of overalls do not lend to a 'square' and even less-so on sewing around gromets. The thickness of some clothes is also a hindrance, so the seems need to be ripped out and re-attached to provide a 'thinner' fabric. I cannot take any credit for these reworkings as it was all mom - she is truly talented with the projects and machine!

Can you see the collar parts she put together with backing of fabric from the body of the outfit?

Memory Quilts of Baby Clothes: Making 3!!

An old friend from college was clearing our her attic and came upon her sons old baby and toddler clothes. All those clothes that she had stored away after having three boys. We had talked years before about making quilts and she decided to send the clothes to us so we could make her three Memory Quilts - one for each son's family when the time comes. So here is what arrived - two big boxes of clothes!




We started sorting by color and fabric and weight. We planned a layout in the Crazy Quilt style and patchwork style - and she would like patchwork.


All three will incorporate different fabrics and we are grouping by colors....Here is the layout of two so far.....





I'll post pictures when we're done!

My Husband's Endless Supply of T-Shirts

I've been so excited about sewing!! A few things that have got me going again - the nice weather, a cleaner sewing room (took hours and it is looking much better), the new girls dresses, the new blue and green chenille quilt I'm making, an order for two teddy bears (yipee! Got it yesterday as well as an Etsy sale for our "Bonnnie the Bunny"), and I've been commissioned to make a "Memory Quilt" out of old baby clothes!! As I wait for the box of clothes to arrive, I thought about how we could pare-down our possessions. This morning I threw a thought at my hubby: How about I make you a throw quilt with some of your old t-shirts?? Much to my surprise, he AGREED!!! So as I finish up the mint green chenille teddy bear, I'm hoping he starts looking through the THOUSANDS of tees (in my mind it is 'thousands') and pulls the ones I am free to cut and sew. If your husband or boyfriend is like mine, he's got tees from 1982 that are literally held together by THREADS and he refuses to let me throw them away. Uuugh. Needless to say, I am pumped to make something for him (and clear some shelf space).