"Two Memory Quilts"

Not too long ago - back in October or November, actually, I met a lady from the area as part of our local Zero Waste group. Her name is Ewa and she has a friend who does handiwork with the patients from a local psychiatric hospital so she’s always looking for things to use. Because I offered up poly batting scraps one time on this Zero Waste group, I met her when she came to get them. We talked a lot that first meeting.

When I quilted this one, I used a sort of small stipple on the background and a larger one for the blocks themselves. I bought 3 meters of it but used two on these quilts and had enough left to use it up in one of the geometrics quilt tops. It was over 60” wide.

The second time she came for some things, we were talking and she told me her brother-in-law had died the year before. I told her that I would be willing to make her a memory quilt if she wanted me to - from some of his clothing - if they still had some.

(It’s really sweet for me because she speaks good English - so I can really talk and talk - without getting tired!) :)

She didn’t want one for themselves (her husband and her) but she told me that her mother-in-law would love something like this. Then she asked me if I could do a combo for her from the father-in-law and brother-in-law’s clothes.

Now, let’s get this straight. I’ve never done a memory quilt out of t-shirts. The ones that I did from my dad’s clothing were all very much woven shirts. He didn’t wear t-shirts except the so called ‘wife-beater’ undershirts and they were always underwear. Under other clothing. No t-shirts. My dad didn’t wear them. He’s probably the only male on the planet that didn’t wear them.

The brother-in-law’s quilt - I had the three t shirts, a navy shirt and a pair of plaid pjs. The yellow bandanna fabric, green airplane fabric and Harley fabric were because they each had special meaning to them. My sis sent it to me. The Brother-in-law had been a pilot for an acrobatic team.

I chose the light sage green fabric as a background because I was told the MIL liked green. I like using labels!!! Why not? They are fun!

I told Ewa that I had already volunteered to two different people to make them memory quilts out of their loved one’s clothing, but to date neither of the other two has taken me up on it.

I determined not to take it personally if she said “no”, as well. (But I wondered why? I thought my quilts were at least “ok”—I wasn’t asking to be paid - I was volunteering, BTW - these other ones were both people I had known and cared about. I don’t offer my services lightly.)

It’s sort of like when you offer your help and the other person doesn’t want any. If it happens once, well, that’s fine. If it happens two times, well, that’s fine as well, but after that, if people keep saying, “No thanks”, you begin to wonder if the problem is YOU.”

That is where I was with this “memory quilt” thing.

Anyway, Ewa told me that it would be great for her mother in law - but thought it would be better with one quilt with both people’s things on it.

So, I thought about it for a while. After a week or so she brought me two bags of items - neither bag had a whole lot of things in them.

In the brother-in-law’s were 3 t-shirts and a couple other items - a navy shirt and a pair of plaid pjs.

The father-in-law’s quilt - I had a sort of light-weight corduroy tan/turquoise shirt, a nice blue plaid shirt and a wild striped blue pj shirt - plus a piece of tan of thicker fabric. I got my sis to send me some shoes fabric (he had been a shoemaker), and some race car fabric (loved car racing). I worked from there.

The father in law had a few shirts as well and she had put a piece of tan thicker fabric that I thought had special meaning to him. It turned out that the tan fabric was just for me to use with my fidget quilts. LOL.

It turned out that the tan fabric didn’t really have any special meaning to the FIL, but I had thought it did, so I worked it in the quilt. The solid blue surrounding the label fabric which was a label from the back part of a shirt was cut from the stripes from that wild blue and light blue fabric in the other blocks.

I knew that my sis was going to send me a panel (in December) so after talking with Ewa and finding more about the people involved, I asked my sis and my daughter, who was in FL at the time, to send me a few fabrics (about 12” of each one) to help spice up this memory quilt. I still struggled with how to make one quilt out of two different people’s things without mixing them up - as they were different colors and such.

Finally, after I got all my things from Rachael (took about a month because it was over Christmas/New Year’s/Three King’s holidays) making a plan and a final decision, I wrote Ewa and asked her if I could please make two quilts - one of the FIL’s clothes and one with the BIL’s.

She was fine with that but felt like it was going to take more of my time - which is why she had asked for one to start with.

I assured her that making two smaller ones was going to be easier for me than one larger one. (In the end, she told me that she had thought I would do it reversible - one for one side and one for the other - but that is not how I had understood it - I’d understood it to be the top and bottom of the same side).

So, finally, after the getting the “ok” to make two, it was easy.

It turns out that the father in law was a shoemaker. What a perfect place for some of our really nice men’s shoes fabric! Thanks, Rachael!

I first made the t shirt blocks and worked them out from there. I’ve never made a quilt with tshirt fabric before.

I did use a light fusible interfacing on the t-shirt fabric to help stabilize it, and was petrified that I was going to mess something up whenever I went to do something with it!

The BIL was a pilot for acrobats, so his t-shirts were pretty special!

At first I wasn’t going to show Ewa what I was doing, as I thought maybe a surprise was in order.

But then I wondered if that was the right thing to do. About a week after I got the fabrics from Rachael I had the quilts finished. I had kept Ewa up to date with what I was doing - maybe not step by step, but reasonably current, so she wouldn’t be expecting one thing and getting quite something else.

She had not told her husband what we were up to. I told her that I was finished and would be able to give them to her on Saturday morning after I got some pictures - so by 9 am they would be ready to go. At 9:02 am their car pulled in our gate.

She and her husband came inside our house and I showed them to them both.

Ewa began to cry - tears leaking out of her eyes. It was so sweet. The husband was in shock, I think (It was HIS father’s and HIS brother’s shirts).

I was tickled that they liked them - Ewa was just overwhelmed - she told me they were better in person than in the pictures!

I bought three meters of this light sage green fabric from a local auction. This is how much I had left after the two memory quilts and the geometrics 8 quilt shown below.

She wrote me later and said her husband noticed the different quilting that I did on the two different quilts. She also told me that she hadn’t told her husband what I was doing and when she did (on the way to our house to pick them up), he was a little apprehensive about what I was going to do! She told me he was “beyond happy” with what they looked like!

I am still thinking about how touched Ewa was over what I did - which, while nice, was not the “greatest thing I’ve ever done”.

There are some people in this world that are givers and some are takers. Ewa is a giver - so I’m glad that FINALLY I was able to give something to HER - even if it wasn’t really for her.

I had about a yard of this 60”+ wide fabric left after finishing these two memory quilts so I use the leftovers to make Geometrics 8.

They then went on the two-hour drive to her mother-in-law’s house and gave her the quilts that day. I heard back that the mother in law loved just touching the fabrics on the quilts that were her husband’s and son’s. She mentioned it was nice to have something besides pictures to remind her of her lost loved ones.

How’s that for feedback?

In the end, I am sure I got more pleasure out of this experience than even they did - just hearing back things like that - and seeing the pleasure that they had when they saw the quilts - there really is nothing more exciting to a quilt-maker than that - is there?

And so ends the saga of “The Two Memory Quilts”.

Thanks for reading along.

I trust you have a great day wherever you are!

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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