What would you add to a memory quilt. Tips and tricks?
 

I have a daughter that is turning 20 this year. She has had a very rough teen years and I was thinking that I would love to make her a memory quilt of all her accomplishments and activities that she has had through that last 2o years. Here are my ideas ;

1. Baby picture
2. Living in Hawaii
3. She was on the swimming team
4. volleyball team
5. 2 High Schools
6. Photography
7. Journalism
8. Pics of her best friends
9. Pic of her and her boyfriend.. ( not to happy about this one but )
10. A Bible verse.

Of course I have never done anything like this before. So would love your input on how to accomplish this.

I think I will start with the pics and go from there. Her birthday is not till June so i should have time to make it. I want it to be a completely surprise. Maybe i do need an embroider machine.

Sounds like it will be wonderful and she will truly love it.

She loves my quilts.. I can't wait to see her reaction. Hope I can keep it a secret. hahaha

Sounds lovely. Maybe a photo of Mom and Dad also. Or a family photo?

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan going, I think it will be wonderful. I love my embroidery machine for adding to my quilts!!!

I'm not sure I'd include the boyfriend. At 20 (as is my daughter), he may be gone before the quilt is finished. I'd save him for the (bite my tongue) wedding quilt.

Does she read? Something with a favorite childhood book might be nice.
Maybe a silly phrase she said as a child.
Grandparents?

The list is really endless when you get started thinking about it. This could be a really fun quilt to make.

Yea the boyfriend is a big if... they are already talking marriage, even though he does not have a job, does not drive, has no motivation and we would love for him to take a hike.

i like the idea of a picture of the family. Did not even think about it. .. ha. Will add it to my list.

Then I would put a pair of hiking boots on it....just kidding.
you could add something to remind her of her favorite music, movie, or a piece of favorite clothing.

If she has any year books. Maybe add copies of friends pictures, autographes and the like on fabric you can use in injet printers. I did a quilt for my son and had him get his friends to sign blocks with notes to him so I could include them in his quilt.

Agree with al but boyfriend. She will keep the quilt forever and the boyfriend will probably be gone and maybe a bad memory. Go with friends or groups.

I agree, add photos of family, especially grandparents if she was close to them, or cousins she was close to. Any pictures of pets would be nice too. I don't think I would include the photo of the boyfriend though. What if they break up? She may not want the photo in there. Can't wait to see what it looks like when you are done!

I did this one years ago for my Son. family pics.

That is so nice. Did you have any problems with the pics? Kind of nervous about that.

When I made a memory quilt for my mom's 80th, in addition to pictures, I cut out hearts, had family members write a message on the hearts with pigma pens and appliqued each heart onto the quilt.

If you put the BF on it,,,have him on the edge of a photo,so he can be appliqued over if necessary. You could start looking for skunk fabric to broderie -purse ! LOL! A quilters answer to photo shopping.

All ideas are great, I also agree I do not think I would add the boyfriend unless it could be taken away later.

Sounds like a fun quilt to make but leave off the pic of the boyfriend. If they break up would she want to use the quilt?

When you print the photos, make sure you use a good quality print ready fabric (I use printed treasures but I have heard the fabric from Electric Quilt Company is good too). When you print the pictures, if you have a program that allows you to do some fixing, I would make sure the colors are very strong (over saturated) since the color will soak into the fabric. After printing, Printed Treasures has you rinse the fabric to get the excess ink out. I then iron it good to help make sure it sets.

I would add family pictures and the idea of getting friends pictures from a yearbook would be cool (so would copying nice things friends wrote in the year book). Great memories. Nix the boyfriend -- if he sticks around he can be in another quilt.

Thanks for the ideas, especially the thoughts on the bf. If he gets his feelings hurt than to bad. I suppose if I wanted him to stick around it would be different. And if they say anything I can always say waiting for the wedding.

since i did mine yrs ago, i actually took squares of fabric to a printing place and they had one of those large ironing machines (like t-shirt places have) and made copies of my photos (which i had placed on 8x11 paper) and ironed them onto my fabric for me. I just cut them up and made my quilt.
now i know about Bubble Jet set and all the special fabrics and would do them myself from my computer. I didn't sew through the photos, nor iron over them.

You have a good start there. I too would leave out the boy friend. Relationships can change fast. Pics of her growing up, pics of your home{s}, family, use baby/child clothing if you have it. Favorite places, toys, sayings, etc. Have fun!

Maybe some cute vacation pics, prom or award pics, a favorite pic of her with mom, or dad, or grandparent, graduation photo.

See... another great idea to use baby clothes of hers. Thanks

When I did the none for my Mother in law I left blank spots for her too add photos if had new additions to family. Grand kids or her grand son getting married etc. I left 5 blank squares to Add photos.

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I was thinking the same. Leave the boyfriend off because if/when? she breaks up with him she will hate looking at that. I agree with the previous poster to make that part of a wedding quilt.

I'm including a picture of different fabrics that I used for my daughter's quilt I made her. Each square represents something from her life/our life as a family For example, the pumpkins in the bottom middle right is because I had a garden and grew pumpkins Apples, because she really loved apples and we have lots here, the matryoshka dolls because we live in Poland these are a popular thing made in the Ukraine that we can buy here, Curious George because we loved reading his books, etc. I had a lot of fabric and they could choose fabrics they wanted for their quilt. I did buy several batches of 6" squares on Ebay with some children's fabrics to help out.

It's not the typical memory quilt with pictures and all because I wanted the kids to use these quilts, and I was kind of afraid that something with pictures would just get in their way while they went to college. I figured they could take this one with them when they left home and have a little part of us with them.

I like the different fabrics. I don't want all pics either but wanted to get some fabrics also. thanks for posting the pics, that is an awesome quilt. Beth

I love the idea of leaving a blank spot. Will add that to my list. Thanks Beth

Thank you everybody. I love all the ideas you have given me. The pic of the boyfriend is out.. Glad you guys agree with me on that. :-)