I've been tossing around ideas for my mother's memory quilt. She's been gone almost 2 years already and I still haven't thought of a good pattern yet. Earlier, someone had the suggestion to mix the shirt pieces with pieced blocks. I think that would be cute. Someone else said to frame them in fabric and that would be good too...have to make sure it's not too busy.
I would sit down with her and explain the process of piecing. Perhaps this is something you could talk about and cut the pieces together. She would be educated on the amount of time, patience, and thought go into just the idea of a quilt, before anything is cut and pieced. Perhaps with the two of you sitting down and working on it together, it has the potential to catch that contagious quilting bug, and two work on a first project with just the two of you.
I see the potential for a wonderful combination of what you both could do together.