Memory Quilts - trio of finishes

Finally, the Memory Quilts have had their last stitches stitched and been washed, dried and folded ready for passing on.  I've told the story of these quilts in a previous post so I won't say too much here, but just show you the finished quilts front and back.

Aqua Pixellated heart - quilt front

and pieced backing nicely crinkled from the dryer.

Red pixellated heart - quilt front

and pieced backing.  Happily, the three colour catchers I included in the wash worked a treat and there was no bleeding of any of the many reds used.

Random wonky stars quilt - front

 and pieced back.

I added a label to the back of each quilt.  They are slightly larger and less discreet that I might have wished but I want the children to understand what the quilts are.

The quilts have finished at 60" square each and I am pleased that they've turned out probably even a little better than I first expected.  I won't deny that I am relieved to have finished them, perhaps because of the weight of responsibility I felt for making them worthy of my brother-in-law's memory.  All that remains is for me to pray over them before I pass them on that they will be a blessing and a comfort to his children in time.

Memory Quilts - Busy Bee

I've had my head down so well focussing on the Memory Quilts that I forgot to come and share my progress with you.  I think I just found a "zone" and stayed in it for a week and a bit!

I finished piecing the top for our nephew's quilt.  I love how those bright pops of wonky starriness and the little pixels of stardust contrast with the more subdued shades of the shirt fabrics.

Then I set to scouring my stash for suitable backing fabrics.  Although I was tempted to forego the option of piecing backings, I did actually find enough suitable fabrics for all three quilts and made the effort to stitch them up.

In the process of working on these three backings (forgot to take a pic of the red one) I learned that my aversion to pieced backing is not to do with the actual piecing itself - that's not difficult at all.  Rather my reluctance comes from the lining up of the backing at the basting stage to make sure the fabric seams aren't all running at horrible angles.  Think I managed it better than usual this time, but you can be the judge when I post finished pics.

Following that I got my wiggle on and settled down to quilt all three quilts - not in one go, but when there was a spare minute I was there weaving my basted sandwiches through the walking foot.  Top tip - try not to sneeze when you are in the groove of quilting wavy lines.  The sneezes took me unawares and my nice smooth waves are interrupted here and there by weeny little jumps as I achoo-ed - oops!!

The pile of shirts came out again after all that quilting and I cut what felt like acres of 2.5" strips to make up the required inches of binding for the boy quilt.  It wasn't really acres, of course, as it's not a huge quilt, but when you are not cutting from nice full width of fabric pieces it can seem like you are cutting forever.  Red and aqua strips were also sliced and pieced to make scrappy bindings for the girl quilts.  I was definitely on a roll!

And then, I did this!  Yes, I started to stitch my binding on before I had folded and pressed it in half  doh!  Spent a little time in the pleasure of Mr Ripper's company before re-doing it properly.

So, the quilts have moved on apace as you can see.  They are now all awaiting the handstitching part of the binding process.  It's a good job it's one of my favourite parts as there are a lot of inches to cover!  Some has been started and I guess I will just work my way through them at a more leisurely pace than this past week and a half.  At least that will give me time to think about what way I want to label these Memory Quilts for posterity.

Memory Quilts - Getting on with it

Doing my very best to stay focussed on the Memory Quilts here, even though so many other lovelies are calling my name from the various books, boxes and shelves of my sewing room.  La la la la - I'm not listening!  But oh how I wish I could.  Just for a small project or two.  I'm in the mood to do something I can start and finish in a weekend.  Must not give in, must remain focussed!

So, the result of such amazing self-denial is that the red pixel heart memory quilt top is now all pieced

and so is the aqua one.  I'm happy that both seem to have worked well and that the heart made from my Brother-in-law's shirt fabrics is well enough defined in each case.  These tops measure 60.5" which is a little smaller than Judith's original pattern (I used a slightly smaller square as my pixel base size).

I've hung the tops up for now as I ponder potential sources of backings - to piece or not to piece?  Will depend greatly on available suitable fabrics and available time and as you well know, pieced backing are not my favourite thing to do.  We'll see ....

With the pixels underway, I did break up the monotony of sewing so many squares together (there's a lot of them in two quilts!) by starting on the wonky stars that will be the feature of the memory quilt for our nephew.  I do love making wonky stars.  Nice tutorial here if you've never tried them before.

Once the aqua heart top was completed, I whipped up the remaining wonky stars (9 in total) and then spent an evening on my knees laying out the third memory quilt.  I do like these randomly placed stars and coloured pixels (stardust perhaps?) among the more muted shirt fabric background.

Layout finalised, I gathered everything up in labelled sections to make the piecing easier (I hope) and to avoid muddling up squares.  After spending so long trying to make sure no two same fabrics were touching, I do not want to get these shuffled up now!

So, looks like my weekend sewing is sorted.  What will you be up to?

Memory Quilts - Shirts Behaving Badly

This week I made a start on piecing one of the pixellated heart memory quilts. Just at the moment my time is very limited so I'm snatching contained periods of time when I can to make progress little by little.  (Those of you who were on IG on Tues night during my 40 min block making slot will understand how I'm going about this.)  I've decided that since I only have these short bursts of time to tackle the quilts, making them up in blocks of 5 x 5 pixels will be a good way to eat this particular elephant.  

It was all going nicely, a wee block before making dinner, another the next evening before Holby City and some handsewing and then I discovered one of the shirts was not playing nicely.

In this photo you are looking at two 4.5" cut squares.  The one on the left is as cut, the one on the right is after pressing.  Of course, I only discovered this after one of these was stitched into my block!  Bummer - it pulled and skewed the block row horribly and there was just nothing for it but to switch it out with another fabric before moving on.  And, of course, all of these shirt squares will have to be replaced as I come to them in my little block stacks.  Better to have discovered it now though than later when lots of them are already stitched in to the quilt top.

The reason I mention this particularly is just as a wee word of warning to those of you who might consider making a shirt quilt at some time.  To be honest, it's very unusual for this to happen with shirts.  After all, by the time you are making a shirt quilt, the shirt has been washed, ironed and worn many times.  Any shrinkage with washing or ironing is likely already to have happened long before you come to cut it up into pieces.  This one has been an oddity in my experience and worth just keeping a wee eye out for.  If the iron doesn't glide smoothly it could be a sign that something's wrong!

So, after a brief interruption to perform a little block surgery and cut new shirt squares to replace all those I have already factored in to this red quilt and the other aqua version, I'm back on track and quite pleased with my quilt top strip that I've managed to piece in spite of time limitations this week.  It's progress and it looks like it's progress (ie not just a pile of cutting) which psychologically makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere.  I think I should plan more 5x5 pixel blocks for next week's sewing interludes too!

Memory Quilts - Making a Start

Remember the 700+ squares that I needed to cut for my plans for three memory quilts?  Yep, this is them.  That was a bit of a cutting marathon, but once I was in the groove I just kept cutting and counting (and choosing new iplayer programmes to catch up on).

So as you can see above and below I used the pile of aqua charms and the pile of red charms as background fabrics for each of the girls' quilts.  The hearts are compiled from their dad's shirt squares and I think they are contrasting enough to work well.

These quilts are made to Judith's Pixellated Heart Quilt pattern which I used very successfully before.  I'm hoping to piece these over the next few weeks and see a little more progress before too long.  Meanwhile a small pile of shirt fabrics and bright print squares awaits layout when I feel my back is up to crawling around the living room floor again!

Memory Quilts - planning

Last time I showed you the shirt piles I was deconstructing for memory quilts that are my absolute "must finish" projects of the first six months of this year (or sooner if I can manage it).  After de-sleeving, removing seams, cuffs, collars and button bands of 15/16 shirts this basket is the pile of fabric I have to work from.

Suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically in October my husband's brother died at the age of 42.  As you can imagine the immediate family are still reeling from this event which seems almost unbelievable most days.  Most sadly of all, my brother-in-law leaves behind three young children whom he loved very much and for whom these memory quilts are being made.

This project is quite an emotional one.  I have been staring at the bags of my brother-in-law's shirts for several weeks now feeling the weight and sadness of the fact that these are even available for such quilts when it just doesn't seem right that he is not here to wear them himself.  I have been worried about starting to cut into them, not really knowing what to make that will do justice to them for his two daughters and son.  But I have stared long enough and figured that I am never going to know how much fabric there is in these shirts until I start making cuts, and I am going to try to think less sadly of these quilts as I make them focusing on the gifts of comfort they will hopefully be for the children.

Making a start on cutting 4.5" squares from shirts.

So, will the shirts stretch to three decent sized quilts?  Honestly, I don't think that I will get three complete quilts from these shirts without supplementing them with fabric from my stash and that's the assumption I made when I tried to settle on designs for the quilts.  Needing to share the fabric around to cover three quilts, I've also decided that the best way is not to work with complicated cutting and piecing and to simply base the quilts on one square cut.  That way, I can cut all of the squares, see how many there are and check that there will be enough for the quilts I'd like to make.

Assuming I can achieve enough 4.5" squares for all 3 quilts, I'd like to make two pixel heart quilts for our nieces similar to this one I made in Judith's class.

The heart shape would be pieced from the shirt fabrics (mostly blues, whites, navy mixes) and I would make the background pixels a bright colour from my stash, perhaps a different colour for each of the girls.

For our nephew, I was thinking that I would use more of the shirt fabrics as a mixed background with brightly coloured wonky stars randomly spaced across it.  It would be similar to this baby quilt idea

but more random and with a more mixed background rather than it looking like defined blocks.

I probably haven't explained all of this very well, but I hope maybe it makes some sort of sense.  To be honest, my head kinda hurts from thinking it over and over and trying to be sure it'll be ok.  I think maybe it's just time to stop thinking and just get on with it.  So, I'm off to cut more than 700 4.5" charm squares from shirts and stash - wish me happy counting!!