I was asked by my second mama to make a quilt for a special person in her life. Mama E has known me since I was a baby. Her daughter is my oldest friend – we grew up together, were college roommates, Maid and Matron of Honor – that sorta thing. Chosen family. The kind of family that goes back so far we don’t need to explain things, we just get it. We know the stories, the people, the supporting cast members. There for all the milestones, holidays and more. Our lives have been intertwined for 50 years and, while I could easily go down a rabbit hole about that, I’ll just sum it up to say what a blessing. How lucky am I to have a friend like that in my life? But I digress.
Anyhow, when chosen family reaches out to ask if you’ll make a quilt for a special friend having a baby, you quickly oblige her. The baby is due soon and I was asked to make a quilt using her parents clothing.
Now, I’m not one to take (many? any?) commissioned quilts, especially when working with clothing. T-shirts are one thing but quilts from ties and garments? Such pressure! If there is one mis-cut, I have a big problem. It’s not like I can go to the store and buy more fabric or replace the item. You have to get it right. That pressure is one thing then there’s the pressure to make sure that you make a lovely quilt because quilts made from garments are really emotional objects for the recipient. For good reason, of course, but pressure all around, for certain. And what’s worse? What if they don’t like it?! gah! Even more selfishly, I’d be remiss not to share that I have such limited time sewing that when I do have time to sew I want to work on my work. But when mama E asked I couldn’t (wouldn’t?) say no to her.
So I met mama E one morning for a cup of coffee and she gave me a bag of ties, linens and garments. I began by taking everything apart then got to work. The center of the quilt went through a few iterations; at one point I had some green, blue and orange in there – it was sort of working but I wasn’t really happy with it. I took a step back and realized how to make all the piece come together, and when it all finally came together, the work was fast.
Here’s a little progression.
I ironed Woven Fusible interfacing to each of the ties and garments for stability before I cut them. The linens didn’t need it as they were still in good shape and I didn’t think it was necessary to add the extra weight and bulk to the quilt. Many of the ties were wide enough to cut a larger quantity of squares for the quilts but ties aren’t all the same size, so that posed a minor design challenge – what will fit where? I had to carefully measure and count squares to make sure the design could come together. It was important to me to make sure that each row of squares was created with one tie or other item for continuity instead of mixing and matching. I’m sure on a galloping horse no one would know but I would.
The squares finish at 3” each to make this lovely Trip Around the World quilt and my friend, Cheryl, quilted the top for me using a darling floral pantograph. I made the binding using some grunge I had on my shelf and I picked up the Ruby Star Society backing from String and Story.
I’m really pleased with how this quilt turned out. Taking garments and linens and incorporating them into a quilt that is both visually appealing and makes sense is a challenge but I think this worked out well.
What do you think?