Memory Quilt- Warning, its a bit teary!

Last month, the 3rd July to be precise my Dear Dad died peacefully at home.  He had been sick for a while with cancer but when he got very weak he went to bed and slipped away, waking only briefly to have a final cup of tea (he loved tea!) and to give us all a kiss. He was the coolest Dude ever - only 65, far too young.

As you can imagine I miss him very much, but I'm a crafter, and what do we crafters do?

WE KEEP CALM AND MAKE SOMETHING!!

He had a great collection of shirts, so last week I went and chose 5 and then took the scissors to them,

Its amazing how much fabric is in a shirt!

Now, I have made 3 quilts before this, I am no where near an expert and as you know my straight lines are never straight so there were bound to be mistakes......
In fact if you are a quilt maker then this will probably hurt your eyes - Woefull attempts at patches lining up!

 I cut all of the shirt bodies into 7 inch squares and the sleeves into bias cut strips for the edging.

then I put my trusty sewing machine to work - the light is to bright here because it was late at night and all the kitchen lights were on. The funny thing about sewing is that once I start time just flies by! At 2pm I looked at the clock and thought, I'll keep going for an hour, then I really have to go shopping for dinner...... the next thing I knew, they were all home because it was somehow 6pm!

 When it came to hand stitching the border, I was sat on the sofa with half an eye on the Olympics and Toby decided this was the best thing in the world  - comfy dog or what?!

And this is it! it measures 66x45 inches, it took me forever to work out a plan for the patches, I had all sorts of elaborate designs but settled for the simplest - I'm really happy with it.

 Now, when Dad was sick he was always cold and so he had one of those Snuggy blankets to keep him warm - you know the ones with the sleeves in them? well, Mum is still using that one but Zac has one that he never uses and the colour was just right so he kindly donated it. I had to cut out the sleeves which left great big holes and no matter how I placed the patchwork squares I couldn't avoid the holes. There wasn't enough fleece left to cover them, so I improvised and used leftover patches......... it is nothing if not unique!! (or just plain odd....) and its not really that wonky, thats just the way I took the photo .Honestly, even i'm not that bad!

Look how snuggly it is!!!!! its big enough to wrap up in, in fact i'm wishing the winter upon us so I can wear it around the house all the time.

  If you look carefully you can see that I made the breast pockets into patches (see the button?) there are 6 pockets in all.

 So thats it, a memory quilt made of shirts that will be treasured and well used, in fact if he could see it i'm sure he would be taking it off me to use himself!



                                                             The Cool Dude Himself!