Any ideas for using professional patches in a quilt?
 

My son is a paramedic and has accumulated a LOT of paramedic and EMT patches over the years. At Christmas, he brought home 16 different ones (most 4" circles; some more like triangular shields about 4 1/4" tall) and asked me to make him a quilt. (There are many duplicates - probably 60+ patches in all.)

Any ideas for designs???

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Sushi

My brother is a career firefighter and EMT/paramedic - so I think I know the patches you are talking about. I have no idea how to put them on a quilt. For my brother I sewed them onto a wall hanging. I wish I had a picture but I don't. I guess some quilts are wall hangings :) If I find a picture of what we did I will show you

Tartan has the right idea. Have your brother choose a couple of contrasting solid colors to use as the background fabric, then find the largest patch to determine the size of squares you will need, sew the patches on the squares and make a beautiful quilt. When you quilt it, you will need to go around the patches with the quilting - patches are so thick and have that glue-like backing that you will probably have a problem with breaking needles and lousy stitches on them if you try to quilt over them. When you sew them on the fabric, use a larger needle (like a jean needle) to keep your stitches clean and your needles whole.

Lots of great ideas!

A group that I belong to made a quilt with the firefighter patches. They made a quilt and whenever they received a new patch it was added to the quilt. This was a great idea for a group that continued to receive patches. One caution for you. Do not use a busy background. That is what was used on this quilt and it was difficult to see the patches because they just blended in. This will be a great memory quilt for your brother.

After 911 I was asked by a local firefighter if I could take the patches he had collected from other firefighters and put them in a quilt that he could use on his bed at the station. Once I had all of them I designed a pattern which became much bigger than bed size. Several members of my guild came together and we put this together in one day and presented it to him during a ceremony that night. It hangs in the Fireman's Union hall for all firefighters to enjoy. Good luck with yours.

Joanie2,
What a great job you all did -- and in one day? Wow.
My husband was a policeman and I owned a uniform store. The police officers would give me their patches, which I have saved, but never used. Never could think of a nice pattern for them, yours is perfect.

I don't know about washing/drying a quilt with those patches in it.

Joanie2,
WOW! Your quilt is stunning! I will do something similar! (I never would have come up with such a great design. I sure hope you consider imitation to be the sincerest form of flattery.)

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!