Quilting in Memory of...

Hi Quiltsmarties! It's Quiltsmart Mandy here. I am so excited to share with you a quilt that has been six and half years in the making, and came to life utilizing the Quiltsmart Double Wedding Ring pattern.

It all started in August of 2008 when sadly, my family lost my dad all too soon. When my mom started to go through is things, I knew I wanted the box of his t-shirts she had set out in the garage. At that time, I promised my mom I would make quilts for everyone using the t-shirts.  I didn't realize then what a tall order that would be! By everyone, I mean myself, my three siblings, and my mom. Boy, did I have no idea what I was getting into!


The t-shirts sat in a box in our garage for years, and have even moved to three houses with us over the years. I would occasionally pull them out, start cutting them up, then quickly lose any inspiration I could muster. I wasn't sure what I wanted the quilts to look like, but I knew I wanted them to be very special!

Last year, I decided that five years had been long enough and if I didn't start now, I never would. I thought it was most appropriate to start with my mom's quilt first. My dad passed away just months before his and my mom's 20th anniversary, so the Double Wedding Ring was the perfect pattern for her quilt.

Although the Double Wedding Ring is a rather quick pattern to make, this quilt did take me a long time. It was an emotional process as I'm sure you can imagine. And, nothing seemed to go quite right. I ran out of the fabric for the jewels, decided to add more squares, changed from the original idea, and had little t-shirt fabric to work with. I had come to terms with not getting this quilt done this year. Then, one day as I was sitting on the couch watching TV, it hit me that my mom's birthday was in two weeks, and her birthday was also her anniversary. It was the push I needed to finally finish this quilt.

She received it yesterday, and was so surprised!  Needless to say, this was the most meaningful gift I could have given her, and I hope it inspires you to make a special quilt for someone in your life.

The arcs were made from pieces of the t-shirt, and since I was working with one box of t-shirts for five quilts, I needed to make the most out of the smallest amount I could. To do this, I made the middle section of the quilt with Double Wedding Ring Arcs, and finished the rest of the quilt with squares accented with jewels. Due to time constraints, I hand tied the quilt as opposed to having it machine quilted or doing it on the sewing machine. My mom liked the way it was more of a "comforter" than a quilt, so it worked out great.

Quilt top prior to quilting

I forgot to get a photo of the quilt label before I sent it, but I put the poem we used at the memorial with "In Memory of..." and his date of birth to his date of passing and included the year it was made.

Have you made a t-shirt quilt, or a memory quilt before? What pattern did you use? Tell us about it in the comments below!