Memory Quilts

Yes, you read that right: Memory Quilts, not Memory Books, as in scrapbooking.  I owe the idea for this project to a good friend of mine.  She approached me five years ago with her idea: she had saved her sons' baby clothes and she wanted them made into quilts to give to her grandchildren.  Naively, I agreed to make the quilts for little more than the cost of the supplies.

It was only when I sat down to look, really look, at the bags of baby clothes she brought, that the enormity of the task dawned on me.  Most of the clothes were of a knit material, so I had to iron them onto interfacing.  But that wasn't even the first step!  The first step was to meticulously cut the clothes apart, followed by the ironing.  Then, the fabric was finally ready to be cut and sewn into a quilt top.

Last summer, I completed the quilts for her oldest son.  She wanted two quilts for each boy.  A few weeks ago, I finally completed the two quilts for her youngest son.

Here are some close-ups of the blocks.  As I cut out blocks, I tried to get the main parts of the clothing: whether it be a design, a pocket, the pearl snaps down a western shirt, or anything else.

She loved the quilts - so much so that she is already planning to have me make some like them for her little girl that is due next month.  I'm not so sure about going through all that work again :-).

Baby Dress

My friend is about to have her first little girl, and so I started digging through my stuff to make her a baby gift.  Somehow, when it comes to baby gifts, my first thought is always "make," not "buy." Sigh...life would be less complicated if I would just buy gifts.  But my legacy is gifting with handmade gifts...passed down from my grandmother and mother.  Plus, it is much more fun and creative!

In my stash, I found a mint green gingham dress that I had cut out several years ago.  It was going to be a gift for someone else, but evidently, I was too busy at the time to complete the dress, so it was placed in my stash.  It was a round-yoke, cut for about 3-6 months size.  When I went to sew the dress, I couldn't find the pattern anymore.  It was an old pattern I bought from GoodWill and somehow it has been misplaced since then.  The good news was that I have sewn many dresses in this pattern, so I didn't really have to have the pattern.

I found a piece of trim in the trim scraps just the right size to go around the yoke and four matching buttons in the button box(es).  Here is the finished product:

Here is a close-up of the back: trim and buttons.

I think, with the gingham, trim, and pattern combination, the dress came out somewhat vintage-style.  What do you think?  Looking at it now, the one thing I would change would be to add tiny tucks on the sleeves, the bodice, and the bottom of the skirt.