Love the latest memory keeping trends? Here are some ideas to bring memory keeping and quilting together!
When the scrap booking craze started, my heart warmed at the idea of hand crafting a book filled with memories. Fast forward to today, and there is an entire industry dedicated to memory keeping. If you can create journals and time capsules for memory keeping…why not a quilt!
Here are a few ideas to inspire your own memory keeping quilts…
- Birthday Quilt: Celebrate a childhood of birthdays by using theme-matching yardage for a child’s birthday tablecloth or use fun fabric each year to wrap their present. Once the fabric is used, set it aside in a special keepsake box. When your baby is all grown up, send them off into the world with a quilt made from their birthday fabrics.
- Baby Quilt: After mom has her sweet baby, have her give you all her worn out maternity clothes and make the baby a fun play quilt.
- All My Children Quilt: As your little ones grow up add special fabric items to a keepsake box. Bit by bit, piece together blocks that tell stories about each child. Collect the blocks until they are grown, then create a quilt for you.
- Travel Log Quilt: Next time you take a trip collect items to commemorate your journey. Collect scarves, native fabrics, or fabric souvenir items. Add other things to your quilt but using fun techniques like painting or couching a map. Print pictures on fabric to add to your quilt or even make quilt blocks from your pictures.
- Timeline Quilt: Create blocks depicting current events. Put them together in chronological order in rows.
- Our Love Story Quilt: Collect treasured items in a keepsake box throughout your relationship. Add favorite clothing items when they are to worn to wear (but too loved to toss). Stitch your mementos to quilt blocks made of both of your clothes.
- Retirement Quilt: When you retire to a life of quilting and leisure, cut up your business clothes, scrubs, uniforms, whatever signifies work clothes for you and make them into a quilt celebrating your retirement.
- ‘Things My Dad Says’ Quilt: Capture those special words of wisdom your dad (or any other pithy person in your life) says and write them on signature quilt blocks. Make a quilt of the blocks to keep those words close.
- Time Capsule Quilt: Collect fabrics that best represent the current day’s culture. Put them together in the most popular quilting pattern available. Be sure the add a label on the back noting the year it was created. Then when you get it out twenty years from now it will bring you right back to the moment…just like Grandma’s quilts always do! See quilters have been doing this memory keeping thing for centuries!
My Quilt Story Project
We hope you have enjoyed the My Quilt Story Project. Below are the links to the entire series from the beginning.
Want to catch up on the rest of the project? Here are the details:
Between now and Fall Paducah in September, we invite you on a special creative adventure. Each week we will offer you ideas, techniques, blocks, and embellishments to help you tell your quilt story in stitches.
If you didn’t catch the beginning of the project, visit here for the quilt story worksheet.
Did you remake your first block? You can find some help here.
Have you decided on the monuments representing the moments that changed your quilt story? Here’s a look at how to start.
Are you building your town? See how we built a building.
Have you created a quilting garden? See some sample blocks here.
What quilt construction techniques have you learned along your journey? Take a look at our list.
Want to add some memorabilia? Take a look at our quilt blocks great for showing off your favorite quilting pins.
Do you have special people who filled your quilting heart through the years? Here’s an idea to include them in your quilt.
Do you have special fabric collections you’ve been saving for years and want to include with a special commemorative block? Take a look at our Original Memory Collage Block!
What about those orphan blocks from past projects, inherited blocks that haven’t found a home? Turn your forsaken & forgotten blocks into treasures.
Have you noticed your color selections for your quilts change through the years? Record your color history by creating a block to display your color preferences through your quilting journey.
Add a map block to your quilt story project. Maybe it’s a place that inspires you or holds dear memories of quilting friends.
Keep a count of your quilt projects on your Quilt Story quilt.
Make a family tree of life block.
As you move toward putting your quilt story quilt together, collect ideas, fabrics, and blocks to help fill the gaps in your quilt.Â
Think of your quilt as a scrapbook or journal, a place where you can save and display all your quilting journey mementos. Check out these great ideas to add your keepsakes as embellishments!
Want to include your mechanized quilting companion in your Quilt Story Project? Why not add a sewing machine block to your quilt? Here are two sewing machine quilt blocks for you to try.