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!)
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| Detail of Lace 2 E2E Stitched in Omni Thread, Natural White |
It was worth the aggravation, though -- I love how this design looks on the wide white borders! I stitched this design with Superior's So Fine 50 wt matte polyester thread in color Pearl and the batting is Quilters Dream Cotton, Select loft (this post contains affiliate links).
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| Anna's Quilt Top Prior to Quilting |
Thank you so much for choosing me to quilt this special project for you, Anna!
FRIDAY
Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More
Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre
Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
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SUNDAY
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
MONDAY
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
WEDNESDAY
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
THURSDAY
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
5 comments:
Ooh this is indeed beautiful. I like the control Anna exercised in her choice of colors and shape for a modern minimalist look, which is tricky to achieve when you are working with old shirts/garments. And then your quilting took it to the finish line for the win!
It is indeed hard to make a quilt look modern using vintage fabrics but Anna has certainly achieved that through her limited color palette and open background areas. Your choice of quilting as always is perfect! I'm no expert but as I look at the design there seems to be a way to stitch it out without much backtracking so that's puzzling. Thank goodness you know how to deal with such things. I wish you were closer because I'd send all my quilts to you!
Thanks for sharing on my weekly show and tell, Wednesday Wait Loss.
https://www.inquiringquilter.com/questions/2023/06/21/wednesday-wait-loss-333
Kudos to Anna for choosing this pattern. The plaid gives it a classic, masculine vibe. As you say, it is restful on the eyes. The curves in the quilting design go well with the straight lines with the plaids and half-square triangles. Thanks for sharing as I am going to keep this in mind. Nice job, ladies!
What a great design for a memory quilt! And the quilting is lovely even if it was a pain to quilt.
Those look like the kinds of shirts my father wears. How sweet of her!
The quilting is so lovely.
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