In the past two blogs I have discussed the thirteen quilts I made for one customer out of her mother’s clothes. With this project my focus was two-fold:  to make the most beautiful quilts I could using the wonderful collection of clothes I was given and to search for simple patterns that could be made fairly quickly but still be elegant.  I just had a short amount of time to make these quilts – they were to be Christmas gifts.

The quilt above met both requirements. It was made for Ernie, one of Deonna’s brothers. Although Carmen, the lady who had fought breast cancer so valiantly but ultimately lost the battle, favored reds, maroons, pink and orange, she also had plenty of clothes in the blue, green, blue-green category and many suits, shirts, skirts and dresses out of richly textured fabrics. I was told that Ernie had an artistic streak and felt I could be a little expressive in designing his quilt, so I used some fabrics which I ordinarily might not put in a man’s quilt. But I loved this simple design because it allowed me to showcase a number of the fabrics yet still be a quilt that was appropriate for a guy.

Finished quilt label re

Label on Ernie’s bereavement quilt

Hearing that Ernie was a fun-loving guy, I put the label sideways in the corner of the quilt.

Deonna wrote: “My brother Ernie was thrilled with his quilt and sent me another text this AM saying he will treasure it forever.  I know he will.  He thought it was beautiful, and loved the design.”