Hello, Quilt Lovers! Today's post shares a memory quilt that my client Anna made from a collection of her father's shirts. Isn't it beautiful? I think this is my favorite memory quilt that I have ever seen. It makes me wish we still had some of MY dad's old shirts and crazy plaid golf pants to cut up for a quilt, but I'm pretty sure my mom donated all of his clothing after he passed away. My dad had some wild 1970s golf "slacks" that would make Kaffe Fassett fabrics look tame! 😎. But back to the quilt at hand...
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| Anna's 45 x 58 Memory Quilt with Lace 2 E2E |
Anna's quilt feels more modern to me than most memory quilts I've seen. I think that comes from the balance she achieved between the busy shirt fabrics and the generous use of plain unbleached muslin for "negative space." The resulting composition is restful instead of chaotic, you can really see and appreciate each of the shirt prints (I'm sure each one conjures up a whole series of memories for Anna). An added benefit of using clothing scraps in this restrained way for a memory quilt is that you can stretch the scraps farther and create memory quilts for multiple family members if you use more background fabric and less clothing scraps in each quilt.
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| HSTs Cut From Anna's Father's Shirts |
We chose the Lace 2 quilting design from Mike Fountain for this quilt because, like Anna's quilt top, Lace 2 has a "contemporary vintage" vibe. Or Retro Chic, or whatever you want to call it. (Word of warning to you long arm quilters out there, though -- Lace 2 is lovely but it's a PITA to stitch out. There's significant backtracking in this design and the overstitching doesn't happen right away, so you have to watch this like a hawk to make sure double-stitched lines aren't off. It is also No Fun Whatsoever trying to restart Lace 2 after a thread break!)
