Today is a red letter day. Not only is it my birthday but I am the guest blogger on WhipUp.net. I met Kathreen when she asked me to submit a project for her book, Whip Up Mini Quilts. I decided to make a quilt based on my Passage Quilting™ process. See my guest post on Whip Up, Quilt Making Heals.
To create the sample, pictured above, for Kathreen’s book, I asked my friend for two pieces of clothing that celebrated the birth of her first child and her initiation into motherhood. She gave me a sailor suit worn by her son, along with one of her favorite maternity tops.
Make your own Keepsake Quilt
Join me for a three part Mini Keepsake Quilt-along. Starting a week from today, I’ll take you step by step through the improvisational process of making the sample for Kathreen’s book. You can follow along using your own unique and meaningful materials.
In the meantime qualify for a chance to win a copy of Whip Up Mini Quilts by telling me about the keepsake quilt you would like to make? What life passage would it reflect? What materials would you use? Enter the giveaway by commenting on this post with your answers. You do not have to make the quilt to enter. The contest will be open through midnight on March 31st.
I have four children, and I have saved all of the blue plaid shirts and prints with the plan to someday make a memory quilt from them.
I have intended to make a quilt signifying my transition into motherhood, using saved articles (clothing, favorite blankets) from the early days of my 3 children. I could use some inspiration, because currently, it is all packed up in a box in the basement!
I am always looking longlingly at quilt sites waiting for the day I have the time and space to quilt, which is hopefully soon as I move into a bigger house with space for me!! I am planning to use the bits and pieces I have collected from my children’s clothes to make a quilt to remember all the special moments of their lives so far…I would like to repeat this every few years or so and keep them for eternity, after they have grown up and left home!
I would make a simple patchwork quilt. It would be made of cotton from Joann’s. The quilt will represnt me finally learning to quilt.
melodyj(at)gmail(dot)com
I would just like to be able to finish a quilt. any quilt. Linda Gerig
I would like to make a keepsake quilt in honor of my son who can no longer live in my house. He came to me through foster care, a victim of neglect and abuse. For five years, I struggled to help him be able to accept me as his mom and to be able to accept my love. I had to make the very difficult decision to let him go, but I’m happy to say that he’s still able to be part of our lives, just not live in our home. I think going through the process of creating a keepsake quilt would help me work through my grief in having to let him go.
Very (I mean very) new to quilting! Finishing 1 small throw quilt for the youngest of our bunch out of Men’s dress shirts with the pockets included to hide his treasures. Would love to make more.
I would make a mini quilt about the first summer with my children, lots of blue and yellow fabric with all the shells they collected on the beach.
Whenever my husband decides he’s done with one of his dress shirts I add it to the pile I’m saving to make a quilt for our first born son. No first born yet, but I have a nice pile of lovely blue shirts for when that fun day arrives!
I want to make a quilt for a friend of mine. Her grandfather, who she was very close to, passed away and she inherited a lot of his things. It would incorporate a beat-up, old sleeping bag and a hat he always wore (among other things). I’m just afraid to get started, these things are irreplacable.
I would make a quilt to commerate the birth of my daughter and her life up until now – which is 35 years … I think she would really love it…
nhsarab at yahoo dot com
I would like to make a quilt commemorating reconnecting with my mother after a 10 year lag in our relationship
I would love to make a Mini-Quilt for my daughter to remember the son she lost at birth.
What an awesome idea!! I would love to make a keepsake quilt for my mom.
Happy Birthday!! I’d love to make a lap quilt with fabric from my husbands older oxford shirts.
I have been toying with this idea for some time now….I am not a quilter…more of a crafter……..but, I would love to make a small quilt using my late husbands clothes to give to my kids an grandchildren…..
Heart Hugs,
Coleen
My keepsake quilt would be for my two glorious grandsons. One of them is three and the other is newborn. When they snuggle together, they can think of their “bababee” as I have been christened
and know how very much I love them.
They live four hours away from me so my quilt will be a constant reminder. I have fabric from their mum’s present and past, so it will be an ideal use for it.
I’d love it if my husband would let me make a keepsake quilt of all the clothes he keeps around for sentimental purposes.
I’d love a quilt using fabrics from my grandfathers’ shirts.
Hi,
I don’t have a sewing machine and I am wondering if I could do the upcoming quilt along all by hand. I am wanting to make some small memory quilts for grandbabies and myself to help remember thier great grandmother, my Momma. Patiently awaiting your reply.
Thank you
Susan
I have made several keepsake quilts that I have all been given away. I will be following along to see what inspiration might help me with several more I need to make. Thank you for the giveaway!
I have plans to make a flannel quilt from all the small receiving blankets I have leftover. Gosh, I have good memories of using those to wrap up my baby tightly. Luckily for me, this is a long term project, as I really only want it done in time to give to him when his first baby is born (at least 20 years down the road).
I have quite a few hankies from my grandmothers that I think would make a wonderful rememberance quilt.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! (one day late) I just love your blog and your quilts
Hope you had a lovely day!
What a lovely idea. My son is about to graduate from college, and I am full of all sorts of conflicting feelings about it- pride, sadness that we are about to close the book on a chapter of his life, excitement about what the future holds for him. If I was to make a quilt of things from his life up until now, I wonder who would need it more- him or me?
I lost several friends in a short period of time over the last three years and have made blankets/wall hangings with some of their gifts to me over the years or clothes they wore while with me during their life. The blankies help with the grief.
I am currently making a quilt for my daughter who is off at college. It is a quilt made with all the various clothes and fabric things she wore in her early ears of living in India. It will be for her to remember the happy days of her childhood living in another country.
I love the notion of a keepsake quilt – what lovely designs………..we all have bits and pieces of the past to share and re-piece together. In my mind, by “reweaving” the past, it stays with us in the present moment.
LOVE THIS!
At last I understood that a Keepsake Quilt can celebrate life, no only bereavement.
So I would celebrate my 4 childrens by sewing not only pieces of clothing of their infancy, but also of the most relevant phases of their life: a teeshirt given by the first girlfriend, the dress my daughter worn at high school graduation, what I was wearing at my son’s college graduation, an ex-favourite shirt…
Yes, I think this is a very good idea and I might put my mind into sewing something like this.
I want to make a quilt commemorating my father-in-law who passed away at Christmas. I don’t have fabric from his clothes to use, but I would like to show some things that were important in his life.
I made my husband a quilt out of his dad’s overalls after he passed away and he uses it all the time. I hope to make a passage quilt from my parents clothes for me and my sisters when they pass away. thanks for the giveaway.
I would make a quilt to commorate our GD who left us for too soon at the age of 18 when life was only beginning.
I would love to use some of our linen kitchen tea towels to make a quilt to remind us of all the fun times we have had together.
My father passed away in 2009, and I stashed his favorite shirts and ties in a box in my sewing room. Not ready to deal with them yet, but, one day…I hope to make something out of them.
If I made a keepsake quilt, I would use pieces of my grandmothers dresses. I miss them both terribly, and love looking at the things they passed on to me.
If I were to make a memory quilt it would be for my father and I would use old tshirts. Thanks for this great giveaway!!
Birthday wishes to you!! I guess you could say that I sort of made memory quilted pillows for my daughter with a few of her most favorite pieces of clothing that she outgrew! I probably will continue to do that! Thanks for the chance to win this book – it is one that is on my Wish List!!
My daughter is 5. I have saved her cotton blouses and dresses to make a quilt for her.
Happy Birthday!
When my dad died, I saved two shirts my brother had given to him. They were very distinctive, and my dad loved them. I intend to make a quilt for my brother, and I’d like to keep the shirt fronts intact–so that they appear as shirts on the quilt. I don’t know if that would look odd, but I think it would please him more than spotting the favored fabric in patches. I haven’t figured out how to do it well, so haven’t yet started on it. Thank you for getting me thinking about it again.
Happy Birthday! I am excited for this quilt along. I would love to make a quilt to commemorate my grandmother, using kitchen aprons I collected when she died. Even better, I still sew on her 1964 Singer machine!
Happy Birthday!!! Blessings to you and may you have a safe, peaceful and fulfilling year.
I would love to make one with all my kids’ favorite baby clothes, well MY favorites that I kept.
)
I’d love to make one from my college days…I’ve got a reunion coming up.
Wonderful idea! I’d love to use some very old fabrics, pieces of aprons and such, that belonged to my grandmother and her sister, to commemorate their lives.
I love the idea of making a keepsake quilt using old baby clothes. Oftentimes there are so many memories with those clothes but it is hard to get rid of them. I’d like to create something similar for my child.
Hi Sherri Lynn, just came by to tell you that your quilts are very cool and your post at whip up most inspiring! I imagine I might do a memory quilt from stuff from my grandmother some day. My mom created the most awesome pot-holders from my grandfathers clothes after he dies years ago. Love those!!!
I would have loved to use my two daughter’s baby clothes to make quilts, but alas that will not happen. Perhaps I can think ahead to their teen years…a very memorable and challenging time to get through.
My grandfather passed away in December, and I’d love to take all the neat Western shirts he used to wear to make memory quilts for my mom and her sister and brothers.
happy birthday! I hope you have a fun and satisfying day.
I’ve thought of making a memory quilt for my son, who died in 2004, using his many boxer shorts.