patchwork quilt

betterlife

does anyone make patchwork quilts, i fancy recycling some of my baby keepsakes, like first babygrow, favourite outfit, blanky etc and making a lovely patchwork quilt for there bed, would be greatful of any advice, tips etc and would love to see pictures if anyone has any thankyou. x

Anglea

He betterlife, I don't make them but I bet they will bring many years of nostalgic memories to anyone that does. I go to a craft club where many of the members are into quilting. One lady buys new, soft blankets from the stores likes Ethel Austin where they are very cheap, then appliques designs on them - sometimes recycling her own clothes for the scraps. That could be a possibility for you with your baby clothes.

deborah64

Might be worth going into a charity shop, lots of different fabrics there.
Fancy doing one myself now lol

becs

Hi,

I'm definately not a quilte but I wanted to make a patchwork quilt for my nephew when he was born. I got a couple of books like patchwork for beginners from the library. I bought ready cut squares intially off ebay but then did cut my own. My sewing skills are basic at best but it turned out great. I also cut out a teddy bear stencil and hand sewed around this for the "quilting" bit instead of more basic shapes. I was pleased with it and am dying for our own little one so I make another one!

Steel_2

What a lovely idea.

This lady does memory quilts and has lots of pictures to look at, and she also has memory cushions.

She seems to predominantly use a design called Log cabin, as it's a good way to use small amounts of fabric economically, but it does need a little practice and I'm not sure what level of patchwork skill you have.

That said, it really only is varying lengths of fabric sewn onto a piece of fabric in a particular order. The first little sample of that one I ever did was a little rustic but looked really nice and there are a couple of excellent books on the market about it.

Squares is a much easier design and you can incorporate pockets and trims with that, but you may need a large amount of clothes to get enough fabric to cover a bed and some clothes you may only get a couple of good squares out of. Also, you could do perhaps do cushions instead if some of the items have very small amounts of fabric?

Edited to add: here's another site. these are memorial quilts, BUT the principle is the same. This lady tends to work all sorts of designs and sometimes just random fabric sizes fitted together. The photos are really clear when you click to open them up into a bigger size.