A Memory Quilt

“Gloria”

A Memory Quilt is made out of the favorite (or not) clothing of a loved one. It is then given to a daughter or son or someone special. The special one can then wrap themselves up in the quilt and feel close to their loved one.

I chose Kaleidoscope because of its significance. Every movement or turn, makes another beautiful thing happen. Gloria was Kaleidoscope.

I picked about 24 pairs of her pants, cut them apart and used the legs to cut long, two inch strips. Gloria was a tall and elegant lady, so I got nice long strips. ,

I then divided them into lights and darks.

 and sewed up the strada sets. One set of dark and one set of light.

I used six strips. I needed it wide enough to allow me to square the strip to a perfect 9 ¼, as the fabrics do have some stretch. I used a Kaleidoscope ruler to cut the triangles at the 9 ¼ mark. . I used four dark and four light triangles to make up the 16 ½ inch blocks .

Now, I have a choice to either make the blocks square and sew them together as square blocks, which would be fine. Another choice would be to just sew side to side and then come back and fill in the squares and outside triangles that are left.
I will sew side to side because I need the squares that are left, to put her pictures in. I will put in nine pictures and they will be a tiny block to add into the quilt.

Here you can see the blocks pinned to the wall and the pictures pinned into the square that is left by joining side to side.

I took her picture and made a log cabin effect. Since the squares that are left are on point. The pics have to cut on point to the measurement of the squares.

Here she is all ready to be put into her quilt.

Filling in the outside triangles: Here is the corner, which get three triangles. The one going toward the quilt will be joined to the picture square. Now this will create another look. I need to make more strada strip sets, but this time with less strips and one strada strip set at a time. These will be cut into 7 ½ inch squares, which will be subcut into half triangles.

Here is the quilt all pinned in place the way I want it. Now I will sew the rows together and set in the pictures.

Here is the first row with the picture set in. Now the second row is sewed together and added to the first row and the rest of the pics get set into that row.

Here are two rows sewed together. Then the last two rows are done the same way and then these sets of two rows get sewed together.


The more you look at the quilt, the more different things you will see. The dominant color or value, is dark and you will see a Maltese cross. If you look in the middle of that, you will see a smaller Maltese cross in some of the blocks and bigger ones in others. Then look at the picture squares. It looks like a log cabin block but on further examination, you suddenly see a four pointed star with the picture in the middle. Even though this quilt is made with square blocks, you will see a circle movement The texture on the fabric also create movement. If you look into the center of the big dark Maltese cross, the light fabric creates a windmill or blades. If you look at the picture and follow it where it comes to a point (light color) and where it meets the other point of the other picture, a complete circle is formed around the middles of the large Maltese cross.

This quilt was a joy to make for my departed friend Gloria. I have made it in her memory for her beloved daughter Lauren.

I will put the border on and quilt it and show another pic when I'm done.



A note to all Quilters out there. It doesn’t have to be cotten