Childhood Favorites Quilts

Not long ago, my cousin Eric and his wife Sara asked if I would be willing to make a quilt out of each of their children’s favorite clothing that had been boxed up in the basement. Jason and Layla are some of the coolest kids I know, so of course I said yes.

I tackled Layla’s quilt first – and I say “tackled” because there were SO many awesome clothes to choose from. They all screamed “Layla!”

Layla is an avid reader, so I decided to base her custom quilt design on a book shelf idea. Each garment would represent a different book, and it was a great way to be able to use lots of her clothing.

There were some really great graphics that I didn’t want to cut into the book “spines”, so I left them intact and spread them out across each shelf.

This lion shirt was well worn and loved by both Layla and Jason, but Layla won the coin toss to have it for her quilt. I didn’t think half a lion would go over very well if I tried to be fair.

I loved having so many colors and patterns to choose from.

Early on in the design phase, Sara thought it would be a nice idea to incorporate a bit of Jason’s clothing into Layla’s quilt and vice versa as a statement about their bond as siblings. I decided to use Jason’s baby blanket, light blue shirt, and part of his cloth backpack for the bookcase. Here is the final quilt, followed by details.

I love seeing where my quilts get to live, so Sara sent this photo from Layla’s room.

Coming up with a design for Jason’s quilt was a no-brainer. He had the most amazing set of creatures who all needed to be kept whole, so I picked my favorites for a large central grouping.

This bear reminded me so completely of Jason’s combination of mighty sweetness.

Because the center grouping only used a portion of Jason’s clothing, I created a pieced border of rectangles sized to a Lego brick ratio – Legos being of particular importance to Jason.