Sure you could do this! Except you'll use them as an applique rather than the fabric from which the quilt is actually made.

Use some tulle, too, and maybe some very lightweight leather and some ribbon for ballet shoes and applique them in a big scene in the middle of the quilt.....sort of a commemorative quilt. Maybe you could also ask for a used leotard, too.

Design them as if they'd been left on the floor in the dance studio's dressing room.

One of my favorites quilts in our guild is of a Doctor's white coat appliqued onto a red/orange pieced background and it has all of the Hippocratic Oath written on and over the coat. What a memory!

Jan in VA

incorporate the appliques with blocks with photos of her wearing the dance costumes in performances

Not something I'd want to take on. I think it would be a nightmare.

I recently made three small quilts from Grandma's clothes for someone. I sewed the material to muslin. It still shifted really bad. I would try basting spray next time to stableize the materal and this may work with the material from the dance items. Good luck, hope my suggestion will work for you.

OMG.....not me!

Oh yes, mulltiple nightmares! Is this where you just say, "No, thanks."

I love Jan's idea and think this would be doable. Good luck.

I have done this before. Depending on the size of the leotards, you can use woven interface just as you would for a t-shirt quilt. Smaller leos, I appliqued to fabric then incorporated this square into the quilt. Happy sewing! These are really fun quilts to make!

Maybe you could cut a small leotard shape out of each garment and applique it in the middle of each block, with stabilizer behind it... That way scraps of the real fabrics would be in the quilt, it would be a dancer's theme, and it would be primarily made of quilting cotton so that it could be a useable quilt.

precisely....you can not "iron" the fusible to them....so unless you want to lie them on the top and hope they stay still while you quilt them down...forget about it...tell her that lycra/spandex also breaks down over time....they won't launder like the cotton either..as in NO heat allowed...it would be a nightmare..move on!