I am finally ready to start making a quilt from my brother's clothes. He passed away almost 3 yrs ago now and I miss him each and every day. My plan is to make at least a lap quilt for myself, my mother and my sister and if I have enough, for his sons. I have VERY plain shirts to use, like turtle necks and T-shirts. He was a hard working man who worked outside most of his life so they aren't pretty but they were his and I remember him in most of the shirts. I need a very simple quilt pattern to use as I'm not very experienced and not very good at quilting. I'm thinking something with basic squares. Does anyone have any quilt patterns that might work for me? I will pretty much only have blue, red, green and white to use as most of his shirts consisted of those colors. I'm thinking I may just end up using basic squares but if someone had something that was easy and looked nice I might be able to do better! :)

How about a 9 patch block that you alternate with coordinating plain fabric squares. You could also do a memory quilt where you use the fabric sheets that you can print on with your ink jet printer to incorporate photos. I'm sorry for your loss and hope working on the quilt brings good memories of your brother.

try square in a square, easy, but a little more to look at than just plain squares

My very first quilt was a memory quilt for my brother. I did squares and then a border. I used his pillow case and linen to add pictures of him. On other squares I added his military patches. I was just learning to use the sewing machine and used decorative stitching around some of the pictures. Once it was done, I added his name tags from various jobs and his medals. Today, I have it hanging in my hallway. The size of the blocks was based on how much fabric the shirt had and had enough fabric to make all of blocks the same size. I hope this helps. It is not so much the pattern you use, it's the love you have in your heart that is stitched into the quilt - it makes it priceless.

Thank you ladies for the advice! Magdalena....your post brought tears to my eyes. You are right, it's not the pattern I use it's the love I put into making it! And I will hopefully feel good when I cover up with it because they were his clothes. That's my hope for the quilt. I don't know what my mom and sister will do with theirs but I plan on using mine! :) I am thinking just a lap sized quilt will be just fine, i'm pretty sure I have enough shirts for 3. I have about 12 cotton shirts/turtlenecks, 4 or 5 button down shirts and about 5 hawaiian print shirts all size XL. that should be enough, right?

You will have enough fabric. Make it easy and a special me and my brother time. Please post your progress. I think we would all love to see the quilt. God bless you and your family.

thank you. I cut up one shirt tonight. It wasn't one I'd ever seen him wear so it wasn't too hard to do, it didn't really feel like it was his. I know it will be hard to cut the special ones that I remember him wearing a lot..........I'll get there though. thanks for the support. I'll post my progress!! I'm very slow though so be patient!

I should have mentioned that my brother was a Vietnam veteran Army and re-enlisted in the Coast Guard. I sewed those patches and pinned his medals to the quilt.

Hi Rymer,

i think what you are doing with your brothers clothes is really a wonderful thing to do.

Have you seen this tutorial that shows you how to cut up shirts to get the maximum amount of useable fabric?

http://thethriftyquilter.blogspot.co...e-thrifty.html

I hope you will post a picture of the lap quilts when you are done.

Janie

oh that link is very neat, what a pretty quilt she made! I decided to just do squares as I have a few of them to do and squares don't make me too crazy to cut and sew! LOL I'd like to have these done by March 15th which will be the 3rd anniversary of his death. we'll see. my plan was to cut a shirt a night but that would take a while so I guess I have to step it up. I hope to get quite a few cut this weekend. wish me luck! I will definitely post pics when I'm done! :) thanks for all the support ladies, it really means a lot.