Traditional Bed Quilts

Sleeping under a quilt made from the clothes of your lost one can be very helpful in the painful process of grieving.  The design of such a quilt can be left up to me or it can be a collaborative effort.  Below are two stories of traditional quilts I’ve made:

• A Mother’s Gift to her Kids – The story of a mother who wanted quilts made for her children to honor and remember their beloved father. I made six quilts for this family.
• One Family – Three Quilts – A Collaborative Effort - The  story of three quilts which I made for one family who collaborated with me on the design and was a rewarding experience for me as well as – I believe – for the clients.

A Mother’s Gift to her Kids

Above are some of the 52 shirts and trousers that I received when I was commissioned to make a number of bereavement quilts for a young family who had lost their father. I checked through the clothes and came up with about five designs each for Luke and Lisanna, ages 9 and 7.

Luke’s Quilt – I first made the Contemporary Log Cabin Quilt below for Luke:

Most of the shirts were so well cared for they looked new, but the turquoise one used above had to be a favorite, for it was frayed around the cuffs.  It was one of my favorites as well.

Labels are so important, especially for children. All the material used in this quilt except the backing came from the father’s shirts and trousers. Trousers make good border material, as is the case above – a bit hard to detect.

Luke was just getting his own twin-sized bed, so since the Log Cabin quilt was for later, a full-sized quilt, his mom had me make him a quilt to be used now.

Luke’s father’s shirts were muted blues, grays and tans for the most part, but he had several Hawaiian shirts that were bright and colorful, so I used them to make the inner medallion Lone Star block. Plaids and checks don’t lend themselves to quilt blocks, but I wanted to include them in this boy’s quilt, to add a masculine quality to the borders. Dockers and jeans were used in the borders.

Lisanna’s Quilt – I made a Ribbon Quilt for Lisanna, using two different shirts for each color except the orange middle.

This was a deceptive pattern, since I had to be very careful about the pieces I used, making sure that they were the same throughout. It goes much quicker if you have only one material for each color, instead of two. But the result is stunning, I believe.

I was told that the kids loved their quilts.  See below for a picture of how they felt when they got their quilts (I made Lisanna a small throw so she would have a quilt for now, like her brother does).  For a picture of that quilt, see Throws, under Bereavement Quilts.

One Family – Three Quilts – A Collaborative Effort

A family lost their beloved husband/father at the age of 50. Using the husband’s clothes, I made the three quilts shown below. The mother’s queen-size quilt was made from eight shirts and two pairs of trousers and featured a unique design chosen by the mother. The outer border was fashioned from black dress jeans her husband was wearing on their first date. The mother chose the purple fabric used for contrast. She requested a small embroidered great blue heron to remember the wonderful days spent camping with her family.

The second quilt was a queen-sized quilt for the daughter, which featured a beautiful butterfly design chosen by the teen-aged daughter, who also chose the color blue for her contrasting fabric.  The outside blocks were made from an additional eight shirts, discovered late in the process.  Borders were fashioned from two pair of trousers.  An embroidered Wallace & Gromet taken from one of his shirts was placed on the quilt at the daughter’s request, a poignant tribute to her father.

In the third quilt, made for both mother and daughter to share, I chose the double wedding ring design and used three flannel shirts and a pair of his flannel pajamas.  Forest green flannel was chosen by the client for the background.  A small camping site design was requested, symbolizing the family of three in happier days.