Memory Quilt: Finished Product

The quilt on my bed with two "fishing shirt" pillows.

My memory quilt is finished!

I got to pick it up on Sunday and I just love it.  The weather here in Denver has been just beautiful, but I’m having a hard time motivating to get out of bed, I just want to lay on my quilt all the time.  I spend hours just touching the little pieces, remembering when Sawan wore that shirt…

I keep looking at each individual square, trying to pick my favorite.  I haven’t decided yet.  I think it’s this one.

(It includes all of my favorites, you see.)

Also, it's Arthur approved.

My friend that made it for me put a little tag on it that says, “This quilt will warm your body and comfort your soul.”  And it’s so true.  There are truly not words enough for how amazing this piece of fabric is.  I so love it.

Memory Quilt Update:

Denise, the friend who is making my memory quilt, sent me this photo of one of the squares and I had to pass it along.  In the center:  the beige is from a fishing shirt (they make special shirts for fly-fishing), the weirdo blue is from this short sleeved shirt that he must have loved but I hated so he quit wearing it but still had it.  The green and white plaid is from one of his very favorites that had pearl snaps on it.  The Blue and white striped is the one he wore for our engagement photos.  The aloha flowers were from one of his date-night staples.  The purple plaid was his favorite work shirt at Ocean, he wore it with a purple tie and called it his Rockies suit.  It looks much more beautiful than I was even imagining.  I’m so excited.

Memory Quilt

I’ve always been overly sentimental.

When I was a little girl, (and this is a little embarrassing, I’ve never admitted this to anyone) I would hate to shower the day after Christmas.  It was just such a long wait for Christmas to come again, and I didn’t want to “wash the Christmas” out of my hair. 

I’m a little overwhelmed by the amount of Sawan’s stuff that I have.  I’m living in a little house right now with an unfinished basement, so I was able to just pack all of his stuff into boxes and think “I’ll deal with it later.”  But I’m wondering how long I’m going to just leave it there, without dealing with it?

I started the process last week, if you can call it that.  I’m not sure how much more I’m up for anytime soon.

I am having a memory quilt made.  This is something that I read about on a website for widows.  It was a suggestion that you take his clothes and make a quilt out of it, rather than just getting rid of them.  I loved this idea and started researching it, and realized that I didn’t need it to be a specific “memory quilt,” I could just have a regular quilt made out of them and it would be “memory” for me.  So I asked a friend who quilts if she could make it and she agreed.  Six months ago.  It’s taken me till now to bite the bullet and get everything together for it.

I finally went out and bought the fabric for the backing and the borders, and told her that I had it all together for her, but then I had to go through the clothes to give them to her, as well.

That proved to be a harder task than I thought it would be (and I knew it was going to be hard, that’s why I waited six months).

I was just sorting through, to get the button-down shirts; they were the right kind of fabric for the quilt.  But getting everything out, and smelling them, and knowing that this was the last time that I was seeing them as a real shirt, knowing for sure that he wasn’t coming back to wear them again, was unbelievably hard.

I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I handed the stuff over, though.  Although it was only one box out of about 20 that I got rid of, something beautiful will come out of it, and I can’t wait to have my quilt for my bed out of the shirts that I have so many memories of.  It’s going to take a few months for it to be finished, but I’ll follow up with a photo when it’s done!

I figure at this rate, I should be done in about 10 years, then, right?