Can you help me?
 

I just came from my mother's apartment where she has retired to a retirement village. I returned with wonderful pictures of my family, But there was one box I couldn't pass up. and that was scraps of every sewing project that my mother or I had finished from the time I was 7. we sent the scraps to my house in TX. The question is now, what do I do with them? I have woolens, double knits, and psychedelic cottons from my teenage years. Does anybody have a suggestion as to what quilt pattern I might use? I want to make her some kind of memory quilt out of these scraps, but nothing seems to go with anything else. Please help. Thank you.

I am currently working on a memory quilt for a friend whose father passed away. She had unsquared pieces of his cotton and flannel work shirts. I made chose a square size and squared them up. Some were so thin...I used interfacing designed for silk fabric on the back of them. It didn't really add bulk. Decided the size we wanted the quilt to be, then chose square in a square blocks. We decided to use 4 square patches for the center of the other blocks needed to achieve the quilt size. If you have enough fabrics you can make the 4 squares from what you picked up also. We had to purchase extra complementary fabrics. We chose 2 fairly neutral colors for the outside part of the squares, one a light and one a dark. This balanced all the other colors we had going on and provided symmetry.

We used 3 borders in different widths to highlight the repeated theme colors in the quilt. We didn't purchase the border fabric til the squares were done so we could audition different ones. The different types of fabric won't hurt a thing just stabilize the stretch ones. Sorry I don't know the name of the stuff. Purchased at LQS as being designed as a stabilizer for silk fabric. We are going to use an all over quilting pattern to hop blend things together. She chose a variation on baptist fan - it reminded her of plowed rows in a field. Let each part of the quilt bring a memory to your mind.

Let us know how you decide to proceed with your memory quilt.

Dresden plate blocks, four patch blocks, nine patch blocks or split nine patch blocks, crazy quilt (you can embellish with any leftover buttons or trims)' grandmother's fan, even grandmother's flower garden could work. If you are troubled by the variety of colors/prints, you could separate and use colors in the same color family for each block, or fabric that have a link (your dresses, etc).

I think I hear them saying "crazy quilt us!" :)

believe it or not, when you have the whole array in one quilt it will work and work really nicely. (just MHO)

why not choose two fabrics in colors she likes. then border each of the scraps with one of these two colors. alternate them with each other. when you assemble the squares, you can arrange the bordered scraps with colors going from dark to light [and to dark again?] i hope this makes sense :)

here is a sample of what i was trying to explain [ATTACH=CONFIG]340061[/ATTACH]

I hear it saying Crazy Quilt :) That way it doesn't matter what the fabric is- what size it is and you can add different stitches to it and have fun - even use some of Moms older clothes ( if you have access to any )

I love QuiltnNan's idea! That would be really pretty and quite easy to make, also.

I saw it posted here a couple of times, I like the idea of a crazy quilt too!