Thursday, January 29, 2009

Childhood Memory Quilts

Last night I received an email from my husband's aunt. It had been forwarded to her from a friend, and she thought it was worth sharing! I, too, thought this was a cute idea so I thought I'd share with you guys! This is the email that I received...
OK, now for the true story about a fabulous thing to do with the baby clothes (rather than throwing them out or thinking a grandchild would wear them). When we lived in Wisconsin we had some great friends, a married couple named Lee and David. Lee is an artist, David a poet, and they were born on the same day (minor fun detail)! ANYway, one day Lee showed me something very special -- she said I would appreciate this, and truly I have never forgotten! We went up to their bedroom, and covering their bed was a very pretty but normal looking bedspread. She acted very mysterious, and then folded the spread down so I could see the flip-side of it underneath. What I saw at first looked like a crazy quilt of some sort, but then I could tell that among the strips and squares were also entire little dresses, little overalls, a flattened (unstuffed) teddy bear and bunny, etc. etc. Each was fit together like a puzzle, and then embroidered on the pieces were words like "Lee's Easter bunny, age 2" or "David's first denim jeans, age 4" or "piece of Lee's baby blanket" etc. When David and Lee were married, the two moms of the bride and groom gathered all their kids' baby goodies, and created a wild and fabulous quilt, never meant to be seen by anyone other than Lee and David when they turned in and turned UP the underside of the quilt! For this reason, I have saved EVERYTHING possible, and fully intend to create the same sort of warm lovey happy underside of a quilt that they can snuggle under every night. FABULOUS, no???
I am not sure about using the quilt on one's bed all the time, but I thought the idea was interesting. I googled "baby clothes quilts", and guess what? There were a lot of hits. I had no idea how common this is. There are even quilters' who will construct a quilt for you if you send in the clothes.
http://www.ednasquilts.com/ is one such site. I found this photo there...
I didn't save enough of the boys' clothes to make a quilt, but I thought some of you may enjoy reading about this idea.
Hope you are having a great Thursday! The sunshine returned so I am HAPPY!!!

5 comments:

Caroline Armijo said...

That is a really sweet idea! I am with you about using it on their bed, but I love the idea.

Sarah said...

What is a cute idea! Hope your house purchase/sale are going well. The colors on our blog were interior, but we need to work on some exterior choices, too!

Jennifer said...

I did something like this but not full clothing items. For my husband I took 18 shirts that he had 'outgrown' (ie meaning they were from high school, college, our honeymoon, special events, etc.) and had a quilt made. The girl took each shirt and cut the main design into squares (not sure of the size, but I could measure). It turned out so cute.....hubs was so excited about it.
Another one I had made was when photos were scanned and then a photo quilt was made. Very cool. If you ever want to see them, let me know, and I will email you pics. :)

teg said...

That is a great idea! It kind of reminds me of the quilt and cape Susan Sarandon made for her son and daughter in "Step Mom." She used mostly photos, but she also included at least one patch from her daughter's favorite Pre-K dress. I can't imagine any child not loving one of their own :)

Jodee said...

This is a great idea!

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