Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Turning the Kids' Clothes into a Quilt

I can finally reveal the quilt I made for my daughter's family using the kids' worn and outgrown clothing! I've been working on it for several months and gifted it this past weekend.

I started with a big box of clothes that included knits, denim, cotton, and polyesters - many items featuring embellishments that were too cute not to include (like the little owl). I carefully cut each clothing piece into several 3 1/2" squares, fussy cutting here and there. I salvaged the clothing pieces where I could, using a sleeve for example and turning the item into a short sleeve dress/shirt. Most of the pieces were stained and/or worn and unwearable.


All of the knit fabrics were interfaced with a super lightweight fusible interfacing. Next, I turned the 3 1/2" squares into 9 1/2" Nine-Patch blocks.


I set the blocks by alternating them with a 9 1/2" white square to create a simple Irish Chain Quilt.


I used the graphic tees on the back and pieced them together with a lightweight denim chambray. The purple cat in the lower left corner was a hat, that I appliquéd onto a gray background square.


I didn't get a great picture of the quilting, but I used the serpentine stitch on my Bernina and quilted vertical lines 1" apart. I was a bit worried about the thickness in some areas and decided to use a poly thread and a number 90 needle. It quilted up without a problem!


The kids loved it and it was fun seeing them find some of the fabrics from their treasured outfits!



17 comments:

  1. Love the idea with the Irish Chain layout. It gives the fabric enough place to breathe. xo

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  2. This is such a cute idea and a nice way to keep a part of the children's favorite cloths as memories... really like that you used only small pieces of the clothing in the quilt rather than large ones sewn together.

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  3. How much fun it must have been for you to go through their clothes with memories of when they wore certain items! To incorporate the clothing into a quilt serves as a means to keep the conversation going (e.g. "This was my favorite t-shirt!" "I wore this when we went to the zoo!" "Remember when we bought this?"). They'll never tire of talking about it.

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  4. Beautiful quilt!! Makes a wonderful memory quilt!
    Thanks for a great idea!

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  5. Love it! Thanks for such great inspiration!

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  6. Oh my, this is wonderful - I love the scale of the blocks - and it looks like you have a few happy campers that are eager to use it.

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  7. What a great idea for a memory quilt! It turned out beautifully. And the photo with the kids smiling is just priceless :)

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  8. Love your layout and am going to use it soon. I am making a quilt for my great- grand-daughter from her old clothes also. I bought a book for her called 'Grandma's in the Garbage' about a grandma who made a quilt out of old clothes and that gave me the idea. Thank you so much for sharing your idea.

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  9. What a great idea! I love that it is a two-sided quilt. Great job!

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  10. Such a wonderfully clever quilt idea. It came out beautifully!

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  11. Such a fun memory quilt and using the nine-patch was a great idea!

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  12. So cute and creative! It will become even more precious as time goes by. It is a great keepsake for your darling daughters.

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  13. Very nicely done. Great choice of quilting design.

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  14. How wonderful. It's like an I spy quilt finding old outfits and favorites from childhood. Very special. I should do this with all the fabrics I used to make clothes for my daughter when she was little.

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  15. That's fantastic and you've done such an amazing job!

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  16. This is so awesome; a wonderful memory quilt to keep those special moments alive within your hearts! Great Job!

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  17. Oh my gosh!! This is amazing. A great way to make small pieces go a long way! Totally want to use this idea. Thanks for sharing!

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