My mother in law who was 93 passed away on Sept. 30th., we are going through her things and I was given a lot of her sweatshirts and tops and few pair of jeans to make quilts from for the family. I have never used these type of items before and need some help in making sure I don't mess them up since they will be treasured by many family members...could you folks help to get me going down the right path? Many sweat shirts and tops have flowers, and scenes on them so I wanted to use that part in the quilts. Of course the sweat shirts are much heavier then the tops and jeans so that's another issue I'm not sure about. Please, any help would be appreciated.

you could use an iron on stabilizer to equal out the weight. there are different weights to stablilizer, from lite to heavy. and it would stabilize the fabric.

I agree..... have seen many quilts made from t-shirts and I know they have a stabilizer on the back to keep them from stretching.

You have quite a job ahead of you..... and having done a quilt for someone that was passing..... it's hard to see the fabric through the tears at times. You are a very special person to do this..... hope all appreciate your work.

I am sorry to hear about the passing from your mother in law. My symphaties for you and the family. What a beautiful age she lived to be, 93. You got a big job ahead of you but I know this will be very special to both you and the recipients.

I make quilts out of baby clothes and use light weight interfacing on the back of the T-shirt and sweat shirt material. I would suggest also considering breaking up fabric types like sweat shirts in one quilt, a jean quilt and a T-shirt quilt. Definitely consider not using batting with the jean and sweat shirt quilts and a light weight with the T-shirt quilt. These quilts tend to get heavy. I stiple them all over to help keep everything in place. What is hard too is ironing on the interfacing when you have those plastic decals and scences on the sweat shirt/T-shirt. They tend to melt!

Here is one of the baby quilts I made. The second picture from the top.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-52466-1.htm

Since these are clothes from an adult it should be easier to cut larger squares. I would suggest adding sashing to reduce the extreme bulk created sewing thick fabric from clothing onto thick fabric.

Thank you for symphathy for the passing of my mother in law. She was a wonderful lady and I'm going to miss her alot. They don't come much better then she was.
Do you folks have any suggestions on what is the best interfacing to use? Like I said I've never made a quilt from these fabrics before. And thank you for telling me not to mix the fabric's together, because that's what I would have done. Can I mix cotton and sweat shirt material together? Or do I need to stay with all heavy fabric?
Thanks for any suggestions.

Maybe cutting squares of the sweat shirt scenery and using quilters cotton sashings to put it all together.I would use light till medium weight interfacing. i jsut went to Walmart and bought bolt. You want the iron on with little bumps on one side. Oh I cut the sides open and the sleeves off, then I lay it open and cut a very large over sidezed piece. I iron on the interfacing using a damp tea towel. After it cools I cut it to size.

Thank you Annaquilts for the great suggestions. I knew you folks would get me going down the right path! We just got back to Md. and I now have to unpack the boxes and figure out what I'm going to start on first with these quilts.
I'm also going to make a trip to our local Wal-mart and check out the interfacings. They just put fabric back into our store while we were away for the funeral. Thanks again for all the help and suggestions to all of you!

Four years ago my 24 year old son told me to find something that made me happy. Two weeks later he died from a rare cancer. I miss him so much but have found quilting to be a healing, soothing thing for me to do. I am presently teaching myself to paper piece (thank you YOUTUBE) and plan to use the boxes of Mark's clothes to make a real memory quilt for me. I loved reading the suggestions here and I am sure they will be helpful.

Dear Barba21885:

I'm so sorry to hear about you losing your son, even though time has passed I'm sure it's still very hard to deal with. I can't imagine your pain. A memory quilt is something I've never even thought about making until my dear mother in law passed away. I just hope I can do it justice and not mess it up. All these great people on this quilting forum are quick to help and give us ideas, so I'm going to rely on them to help me through this. :)