Memory Quilts - Part 1

Not all quilts are made for happy occasions. That is the beauty of quilts. After the sudden passing of my cousin brother, an event that is difficult to write about even after all these years, his wife sent me his shirts to make two quilts with. When I opened the package and sorted through the shirts, it brought back memories of him wearing these shirts on various occasions and I could barely hold back my tears. I think I cried every time I worked on these quilts. It helped me navigate my grief and I took solace in the fact that I was making something that his family would cherish as memory of him.

As I sorted through the shirts, I got to know a bit more about my cousin. One that he had discerning taste and his shirts were top quality. He was partial towards blue & red for daily wear and purple & green for more formal occasions. The shirts when arranged by color fell into two distinct buckets. The blue & red bucket was the shirts that had been well worn and I had distinct memories of him wearing them when I would meet him. The purple & green bucket had shirts that were less frequently worn and some almost new. I had seen photographs of him wearing some of these.

The first cut is always the hardest. Slowly I got into the rhythm of cutting the shirt and removing the spines. I saved every little piece I could salvage including interesting labels and trim. The buttons on the shirts were precious too. I purchased a packet of small plastic bags and saved the buttons from each shirt separately as a set.

There were lots of small pieces of fabric so I knew I wanted it to be a pieced quilt where I could use these pieces and thought of the humble Ohio star. It was well suited for the color palette. I envisioned alternating the blocks with blue and red background. I made a few blocks and arranged them but was not happy with how they looked. Then I grouped them by color and liked that better. I eventually thought the red star with blue and gray muted background looked way better than the ones with the red background and decided to just go with that. The red blocks would eventually go on the back. As the quilt top grew I knew I had made the right decision. I also alternated the blocks so that the background formed a secondary pattern.

For the back, I threw together everything that was left, hoping I had enough. It was a puzzle. Carefully placing every piece to ensure it looked balanced. I also set aside some pieces for a scrappy binding. It was a relief to know I had sufficient fabric for both.

Next up was quilting. The only requirement my sister-in-law had specified when she gave me the shirts was that she wanted a soft quilt. The used shirting fabric already had a nice hand to it and I didn't want to add anything that would take away from it. Wool batting would have been nice but for the hot Indian weather that would hardly be appropriate. The Warm and Natural cotton batting was too heavy and stiff for this. I finally settled on Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly blend. It had the right amount of softness to complement the fabric and it was still predominantly cotton.

For the quilting, hand quilting was the only option for these delicate well worn fabrics. The choice of cotton/poly batting would be gentler on my fingers. So far I had always quilted with DMC Perle cotton thread but for this I used conventional Coats & Clarks hand quilting thread in Natural. I just decided to echo the blocks on both sides of the seam.

There were some long meditative hours spent quilting this, as my head was awash with memories of my cousin. He had a great sense of humor and could bring laughter to any situation. Everyone loved him and he was always surrounded by people. He helped everyone, young and old and could strike a conversation with a stranger in a heartbeat. There were times when tears streamed down my face onto the quilt. I only hope it helped make it softer. 

Before I mailed it off, I sewed on a printed label with one of the two pictures I had received from my sister-in-law. I chose the one that was more casual for this quilt. 

Some people shine too brightly to be ever forgotten!