Many quilts that I have done for clients begin their life as clothes. They cloth children and adults, get put through storage, then come to be in plastic tubs to cut apart and begin the next stage of their life as a quilt. The most recent set was for a customer with 2 girls. She wanted small quilts out of their baby clothes to help preserve the memories but not take up a lot of storage room. They begin as clothes and get cut apart. I look for the special parts of the garments and do my best to include those. This might be cute buttons, embroidery or ruffles. The knits are interfaced then with a fusible stabilizer so they don’t stretch. From the larger piece cut from the garment, I cut out the specific size pieces I need to make the blocks. At this time I fussy cut the special parts of the garments into the desired pieces for the quilt.
The pieces are then randomly sewn together to create the blocks. As you can imagine it can get a little interesting trying to sew fur to a light wait t-shirt.These blocks are then put together to create the top. I make sure to get the colors and “special details” evenly spaced through the quilt.Then they are put on the machine to quilt. This is sometimes a challenge working with the different textures, thicknesses and details of the pieces. But they are always appreciated. (The 2 quilts above, while similar are different. They are for sisters, 1 quilt per girl out of her baby clothes.) Binding is added for the finishing touch. The girls quilts were backed with the ABC’s of what makes a girl.
And as always my helpers were right there in the middle of everything.
The following are other quilts that I have made from clothing using the same procedure as above.
This quilt was for a little girl as you can guess from the pinks.
And here is one for her brother…If the kids get one, then so does Mom. This quilt has an applique of the Double Happiness Chinese Symbol. It was made from clothes worn while she was in the Peace Core in China.This quilt was made from clothes, but with a different method. It was already begun when I got it, I was asked to finish it. The pieces of clothing were top stitched onto a foundation fabric and then it was all quilted together.
This type of quilt is obviously very sentimental. I currently have 6 tubs of clothes from one little girl that I will be making 4 quilts from, 2 for Grandparents, 1 for God-Mother, and 1 for the little girl. I have some work to do and I better get busy.
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