missionquilts

A lady has asked me to take her husband's shirts (he passed away last year) and make three quilts for her grown children. Most of them are grey workshirts - plain/dull grey. She has a couple striped ones and about three or four 'Hawaiian print' ones. Does anyone have any suggestions on the pattern to use for these? She wants all three to look different. I can add only a bit of fabric to them... as she wants mostly his shirts for the front. Thanks.

Painiacs

I'd use the hawaiin ones and striped ones to accent the grey. Or even appliqué them onto the grey. Shapes of stuff he liked to do??

TanyaL

Squash Blossom is a good choice. It is a 2 color block on a neutral background which could be grey and Hawaiian. Then it has a border and some sashing. You will have to add the border and sashing no matter what pattern unless you just do grey blocks. The squash blossom would have the grey shirt material cut into 3 1/2 squares so you could get squares from the sleeves as well as from the front and back. Each block would have 2 HST of the Hawaiian shirts. The borders and sashings could be selected to emphasis the colors in the HST. This way the quilt might not end up looking totally bland and blah but have some personality and I'm sure they remember their dad as a personable guy. Good luck on whatever you choose.

missionquilts

Thank you, ladies. These are great ideas!! I like the thought of applique. I don't know what Squash Blossom is though????

TanyaL

Google "Squash Blossom quilt block pattern"

TanyaL

http://www.quilterscache.com/S/Squas...ock_Page2.html
Here is the link for the Squash Blossom block quilt.

nycbgirl

On a site called Paper Panache under freebies on page 3 is a Hawaiian shirt that is paper pieced.(it's a free pattern) I am in the process of making a quilt for a friend of mine whose husband died also. He has 6 Hawaiian shirts that she wanted added to the quilt so I made 6 little shirts for the quilt. They turned out very cute. But I didn't add the pocket to the shirt.

soccertxi

Here is a quilt I helped a friend make for a customer. She did about the same thing and made 5 or 6 memory quilts for a family. This one was my favorite. It is a snowball block. She added a few shirting fabrics to fill in. The only quilting on it is in the center of the hexagons. There were too many seams over the corners.