Finally created a label for Aunt Martha’s quilt.
I’ll change up the label for each family member and add the poem I wrote on each one. I am not putting her date of birth (everyone knows when she was born), or her date of her death (that’s just too damn depressing) on any of the labels. I created it with Bubble Jet Set (just love that stuff!) and some Kona “Natural” fabric. Hopefully I’ll get it on the quilt and add the binding today. Then only 5 more to go!
I quilted Aunt Martha’s memorial quilt yesterday.
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Aunt Martha is a hoot, and one of the wonkiest people I know. She’s funny, loves bright colors and anything different. So I decided to do some free-motion wonky flowers, and wavy lines in the sashing. It’s nice to be able do some practice quilting on these quilts. I find I don’t do free-motion quilting enough anymore. I tend to try to use rulers to make them look perfect. It was fun not having to do straight lines or perfect circles! The flowers are a bit skewed, but Aunt Martha will love it no matter what. I think I’ll do all these quilts with free-motion, giving myself the freedom to explore different patterns.
It looks quite pretty from the back:
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I’ve got many threads to snip, and a couple of errors to frog, but I’m happy with it. I did have a few areas where my tension was too tight (probably from moving a bit too fast) and the blue thread from the front shows on the back. But it will hopefully settle itself into the quilt on the first wash. And, frankly, I don’t care that it did. Aunt Martha will love it anyway!
I did free-hand leaves on the border, which I think turned out pretty darn well.
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This was quite fun to do, and for once I relaxed and freed myself from the constant stress of quilting something perfectly. It was amazing how quickly it went, and how rewarding it was!
I LOVE how that quilt turned out! What a precious quilt – I think the blocks show your mom’s clothing wonderfully, and the quilting you did on it compliments it beautifully. The quilt has both dignity and playfulness. You did good, girl!
Wow. What a freakin’ mess. Took a B-12 vitamin and became Wonder Woman – fabric has been flying around this room! I’ve spent the last 4 hours ironing interfacing on to all the knit and silky fabrics from mom’s tops for the six memorial quilts I’m making. That woman wore a LOT of knit! See that pile in the right corner? That’s leftover shirts in the event I run out of squares from what I’m currently cutting. Although I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Shoot, I’ve got enough fabric just from mom’s jeans to make all six quilts! I’m starting to think mom just didn’t like to do laundry.
Anyways, had a “slap-my-forhead” moment today. I’ve been cutting the shirts into 5.5″ strips, and laying them on the interfacing. I didn’t want to waste a lot of interfacing on areas that couldn’t be cut into squares. This method was incredibly time consuming. About halfway through the shirts I realized, for gawdsake, that I could have been cutting the interfacing to 5.5″ and laying it on the shirts! What. An. Idiot. It is SO much easier to determine where to place the interfacing!! I whipped through those shirts toot-sweet. My Reliable Velocity iron was a workhorse through the entire thing. As long as I kept it filled with water, that thing never stopped steaming, and never once spit water onto the shirts. I love that iron!
This is now my “to be cut into squares pile”:
Not bad. Will probably take me a morning to do. Once I add them to this pile…
…I should have a good assortment to choose from. I’ll get the sashings cut after that, and hope to start on the quilts this weekend!
Mom passed away 15 months ago. She was a vibrant, active 75 year old woman, who fought a courageous battle with lung cancer. She hadn’t smoked in over 35 years. I’m going to make quilts from her clothes.
She was well loved by all of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.
I’ve had all of her clothes in two containers and two huge trash bags, sitting in my sewing room ever since. I’ve been wanting to make quilts for my three siblings and mom’s two surviving sisters, whom the family lovingly calls “The Silver Sisters”.
Aunt Martha even cut off all her hair for mom - she still has it this way today. She loves it!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled out those clothes, picked up scissors, and stood there. Just stood there looking at them. So many memories in those clothes. This scenario went on for months. Open box, pull out clothes, pick up scissors, stand and stare, put them back in the box. Over and over. I finally took the plunge last weekend and made that first cut. And kept cutting.
It’s so much easier, now that I can see those clothes as strips of fabric instead of something my mom wore here or she spilled paint on there. She was a wonderful, talented artist in so many ways. China painting, drawing, sewing, crafting. She taught me how to sew when I was six years old. I credit her with every crafty thing I know and do today.
I had planned on doing a different quilt design for each person. Peggi helped me look for and sort through dozens and dozens of designs. In the end, I decided that the design wasn’t what was important. The clothes were. So I’m doing six simple charm-square block quilts with sashings. The focus will be on the fabrics, not the design. My family isn’t going to care about the design. They’ll care about the clothes, as it should be.
I’ve spent two days cutting fabric into 5″ squares. Unbelievably, I’ve got enough squares to make all six quilts just from mom’s pants and jeans.
That woman was obviously a clothes horse! I am getting ready to start the shirts today. The majority of the shirts are knit, which will require iron-on interfacing before cutting them up, to stabilize them. And it’s going to take a LOT of interfacing. I bought 10 yards last week. We’ll see how long that lasts. Of course, now my room will be a mess for weeks.
My sister is coming up in April for work-related reasons, and she’s bringing Aunt Martha along so she can stay with us for a few weeks.
We love having her here. I’m hoping to have at least two of the quilts done so I can give each of them one while they’re here. I think they’d like that.
