SYTYC Week 3: In Loving Memory Quilt

Last May my father-in-law died suddenly and without warning. He was only 64 and it’s been a hard year for my husband’s family to say the least.  

This week the challenge was LOVE, so I thought about a few different ideas of something that represented a true form of love, and in this case the love within a family.

 I made a quilt for my mother in law my father-in-law's shirts as a reminder of Loy--her husband, my husband’s father, and my kid’s grandpa.

 My mother-in-law recently gave my husband all of his dad’s shirts. My father in law was really specific in his shirts—they had to have collars, and chest pockets that snapped so his cell phone wouldn't fall out when he’d work. To me, his western style snap pocket shirts were his trademark, and so much a part of my memories of him. So I created a quilt using all of his shirts.

I designed the shirts to look woven together for a few reasons.

 Aesthetically, I liked the idea of having a visible identifiable way to see the fabric was a complete shirt, leaving the chest button pockets in tact and cutting around them. Symbolically I loved the idea of the weave pattern representing the close knit love of our family.  I planned all the blocks to have directions with the stripes of the shirts.  So vertical rows have vertical stripes, where the rows have horizontal stripes, to further reinforce the visual of a continuous ribbon weaving under and over each other.

 The actual sewing of the quilt top was quite simple, as it was all block sewing, just paying attention to the pattern of the shirts weaving together against the white background squares. 

I don't have quilting frames, so I tied the quilt with it just on my lap.  I first sewed all three layers together by basting it around the edges.  Then I worked row by row from one side of the quilt to the other,  using gray yarn to tie it.  The back of the quilt is navy blue and  I made my own white binding.

I also incorporated some free hand sewing on my machine to sew a dedication block, and my signature in the border.

I did blur out our last name for privacy, that's not how the actual quilt looks!

It was a really hard project to work on emotionally.  Each time I'd open my bag of squares, his shirts still smelled like him and you can imagine the wave of emotion that comes.  Also just the memories that you have as you're sewing a fabric so familiar and associated with specific events of someone close to you.

I just miss him.  Our whole family does, but I'm glad his clothing was able to become something we can still use and enjoy. 

Quilts are items of comfort, and so this one has been especially comforting just having it in our home and we've been using it more than we should as it is a gift for my mother in law. 
 I guess we're breaking it in for her.