Memory Quilts from Dad’s Shirts: A Year in Review

Hi, I am  very close to having a year’s time involved in my memory quilt project. I started it after Thanksgiving last year. Our Dad passed away in March of 2016. He was a Farmer and a Crop Consultant. He had a vast wardrobe of plaid shirts and chambray and denim work shirts. This project originally started with me just wanting to make a quilt for my husband and maybe my kids. I never imagined how far a collection of 30 plaid shirts and 5 to 7 denim shirts would take me. I have put my entire heart and soul into creating as many quilts as I could. I am up to 11 different tops and have fabric left, and need to create 5 to 7 more.

I will give a quick review of the completed tops and give links to the blog posts, if you missed them from when published.

This quilt top is made from the popular My Guy quilt pattern. It could be originally found in American Patchwork & Quilting magazine in their June 2009 issue. This quilt of course will be going to my husband. You can read more about my process here and here.

This quilt top is made from Plus Squared by Emily Dennis. This uses pieces from all 30 different plaids and uses a denim work shirt as the center squares. This quilt will be going to my Mother inlaw. You can read more about my process here. Our three legged rescue cat, Clarence had to show off his modeling skills in this photo.

This quilt is one that I have decided to call Workshirt Mosaic. I think it was made from 5 different chambray and denim workshirts and then I picked my favorite blue plaid shirt as an accent block. I remember purchasing it for Dad for his birthday one year. This quilt was designed  from using a tutorial by Emily Dennis for a quilt made from two colors of charm pack squares. I drew the design out on a graph paper and carried the design out a little on each side to make it larger. You can read more about my process here and there is links to the tutorial found there as well. This will  be going to one of my nieces.

This quilt is made from the Uptown quilt pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew. I divided  up the blocks switching out half the position of the plaids and denims. This quilt will be going to one of my nieces. You can read more about my process here.

This quilt is made from the original sized Swoon pattern by ThimbleBlossoms. The blocks finished at 24 inches. I chose to add the tiny denim sashing stones as added interest.This will be going to our sister, Barb. There was a Swoon quiltalong online starting in January. It was held for the first three months. I was able to piece 4 Swoon quilts in 2.5 months. I am quite proud of that accomplishment. You can read more about my process here, here, and here.

This is a Scrappy Patchwork Swoon and it has pieces from all 30 of Dad’s shirts. This is a pattern by Thimbleblossoms. This quilt will be going to our sister, Joyce. You can read more about my process here,

This is another Scrappy Patchwork Swoon and is created in the same colors as the first but positions switched. This will be going to our sister, Judy. When creating any of the Swoon quilts, you will be creating alot of half square triangles. It makes good sense to draw another line to create an additional smaller HST that you can use in another project. You can read more about my process here.

This design was created from laying out leftover HSTs. This will have a wide navy border added to the outside in near future to finish off this top. This was created from the leftovers of the red background Swoon. This will likely go to one of our nephews.  I don’t think I blogged about these yet. I know I shared photos on Instagram. I saw a similar top made from a fellow Swoon quiltalong participant on IG.

This quilt top was created from the leftover HSTs from the blue background scrappy patchwork Swoon. This will have a wide red border added to the outside.  Adding borders will make these top approximately 72 inches square. This will likely go to one of our nephews.

This fun quilt is Dogs in Sweaters by Elizabeth Hartman. I chose 15 of my favorite plaids for their sweaters. I added either red, navy or black as the coordinating sweater trims. This quilt will be going to my son.  You can read more about my process here.

This quilt was made from the Moda Bake Shop tutorial for the Woodruff quilt by Cake Stand Quilts. This top was the first of the 11 to be quilted and bound. It was gifted to our niece, who was married the end of October and this quilt was on display at the reception. This was a small  way for Grandpa to be able to attend her wedding in spirit. You can read about my process here.

My wonderful sister inlaw( who was the Mother of the bride ) machine embroidered a patch for each of the memory quilts for me. We had seen the idea for these on Pinterest. They make the quilts extra special.

I would love to be able to have as many of these quilts quilted by Christmas as possible. I have had a couple rough months this summer with feeling poorly and then my main sewing machine went up in smoke. You can read about that tale here. I have collected many new quilt patterns this summer.  I am always trying to find new ways to use Dad’s shirts but don’t worry I do also plan to make some non-plaid quilts in the near future. New patterns is a way to make up for the many that I lost last year when our computer was struck by lightning.

I will be linking up and sharing this blog post with various linky parties that you can find in my Linky Party link page at top of the blog.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Welcome to all the new readers this week!

Happy Sewing,

Shelley