From This to ....................

A few weeks ago I gave a Moo card to one of the mums from school as she had asked me what kind of things I made. I had a call from her about an hour later saying how much she loved everything on the blog and asking whether I would be able to make something for her baby daughter.

I called round to see her and whilst we were chatting I mentioned that I loved making things from childrens' clothes. Clare's eyes lit up and she fetched a bag of her daughter's first baby clothes and we agreed that I would make her a quilt from them.

And here it is!

I really enjoyed making it, using the pockets and decorations from the tiny clothes. I had to piece it with a layer of cotton underneath as the fabrics were all different weights and varied from fine cotton to stretchy t-shirt material. Some of the squares were made up of strips of t-shirt hems sewn to make a block, or the trimmings from the collars of tops with picot edging, or the ruffles from the bottom of trousers and dresses. All the fabric came from her clothes and a spare gingham curtain from her bedroom - so everything means something special to her. I made up a few little appliques of hearts, elephants, butterflies and birds but the majority of the designs were already on the clothes, including the lovely large elephant and the deep pink strawberry. Because of the different textures and layers of fabric it doesn't have perfect seams and would be impossible to quilt properly but it has a charm of its own. I just stitched a few heart outlines at various points to quilt it (I even had Mum helping me with it when we visited them yesterday - it was really lovely to sit and sew on the same project together)

My friends had told me off recently because I always get a bit anxious when I have finished a project that it is not good enough and the person won't like it so I often end up handing it over in a cheap plastic bag, almost apologetically, like "here you go, but you won't really like it!"
So they told me I had to improve my presentation! They would have been very proud if they had seen the beautifully tissue-wrapped and be-ribboned parcel in a white paper carrier bag complete with Moo sticker that I gave to Clare last night!

Clare loved the quilt - it even made her cry! And it was lovely to see her little baby lying on it gurgling at us.

This is definitely something I would love to do more of - being able to preserve the memories attached to individual garments by turning them into a quilt, cushion, bag or doll's clothes, is such a lovely idea and is something I have been doing for my own children for quite a while - hence the name Lucy Locket Recycled Her Pocket. I really do recycle lots and lots of pockets!