sorry to hear of your loss. A quilt with be a good memory cover. I made one for a niece using Tshirts from her years in grad school. I ironed on stabilizer on fronts and backs before cuting the squares (rectangles). I used scraps as the shashing strips. After i finished I saw a tv show (don't recall demonstrator) where they placed the tshirt logos on a sheet of premarked stabilizer then folded one row over the other and seamed. May have been easier. however, they used all same size squared ..My guilt had various sizes of t shirt logos.
Have fun creating and God bless your family.