I and a few other members of my quilt guild, the Country Neighbors, of Brockport, NY were at a craft sale selling raffle tickets to our raffle quilt last April. A gentleman approached us and said "Ladies, ladies! I have been searching for someone to make me some quilts! I have saved my mother-in-law's clothing the last 7 years since she passed away and want to surprise my family with some quilts made from her clothes for Christmas." We talked among ourselves a moment and then asked him a few things. We wanted to be sure he wouldnt' be expecting an heirloom quality king-sized quilt for $100. He was willing to pay up to $400 each and would leave all design decisions to us.
After discussing it at our next guild meeting, we decided to proceed. I emailed Mike for his color choices. He chose yellow for his wife, blue for his father-in-law, red for the oldest daughter, pink for the next daughter and green for his youngest child. Members went home to search their books and magazines for patterns that might work. Mike brought me several bags of clothing.
We weren't sure what we'd find, and there were several items we could not use, but there were at least 16 garments that were cotton and flannel that we could use. Quite an assortment of color! One member washed and ironed and cut them apart.
We came up with 3 patterns that used plenty of muslin so the clothing would be enough for 5 quilts. The 2 adults would get the same pattern in a king sized. The oldest daughter got a lovely pattern that used rail fence and nine-patch and the youngest 2 got versions of Irish chain with an applique in the centers made of the clothing fabric; hearts for the pink and stars for the green.
Whenever we work on group quilts, we have someone make up "kits" and this is what I did. I made over 50 baggies with cut squares for the nine-patches and the irish chain blocks. I decided the best way to get the appliques to turn out alike was to fuse them myself and have members do the edge stitching. So I cut and fused about 30 of those blocks. By this time it was August and it seemed like the pressure was on. I was thankful to all the members that every single kit and block went home from our August meeting.
In September, we scheduled 2 sewing days to assemble rows and quilt tops. One member took the pink top home to quilt on her Tin Lizzie and I did the other 4 at a shop that rents time on their HQ16's for $15/hour. Several other members sewed the bindings on.
At this point, we needed to plan a special label for each quilt. I emailed Mike to ask what name his MIL went by such as Grandma or Nana and he answered "no one ever called her anything but Helen." I found a lovely panel of labels that were Christmas cardinals and used my embroidery machine to stitch the info.
We invited Mike to our Christmas party and presented the quilts to him. We had them on a table and revealed them like a bed-turning. He was very pleased and looks forward to the surprise he's "managed to pull off" (his words). It made us all feel good to make such a lasting memory of Helen for her family. Not to mention, it was a pretty good fund raising project for the guild.
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