Quilt Reveal - Tiny Patch Quilt - made with clothing

It’s been awhile since I posted a quilt reveal. I’m almost ashamed. To be fair to myself, I have finished other quilts, but it hasn’t been anything new that I’d want to show you. It’s just been me filling custom quilt orders that you’ve seen me make before.

This one’s a bit different though.

It is made with somebody’s husband’s clothing. This kind of quilt is always so meaningful to me.

It was mostly men’s dress shirts and slacks, a few Hawaiian shirts, some jeans. I mixed them all with low volumes for a checkerboard design. I couldn’t resist giving it a cuddle before I sent it to the wife that was left behind. I imagine her hands running over the texture of it and maybe getting emotional.

I have been emotional myself lately with my grandmother’s passing, so this feels extra close to my heart right now.

You’ve seen me make the Tiny Patch quilt before, three times to be exact. See them all here.

I decide the size squares by which one of my square scrap boxes are full. In this case it was the 4.5″ squares. What I was short I just cut from larger scraps of low volume. The “color” is all the clothing, except for one white oxford shirt I also included.

I’ve detailed my scrap storage method here and here. I really should update that post….

Take a Class
Color fanatics and hand-stitching aficionados will find a lot to love in Tara Faughnan’s “Big Stitch” quilting class. Tara shares her techniques for picking harmonious fabric colors to sew a high-contrast bar quilt, then shows how to quilt by hand with a dazzling array of threads. The final product is a richly layered piece that can be used for a mini-quilt or pillow top – or you can go big and apply this technique to a full-size quilt. The process is playful and inspiring, suitable for both first-time quilters and more advanced stitchers.

Learn how to:

Sew a “bar” quilt top
Match fabric and thread colors
Hand quilt using cotton, pearl and metallic threads

What you’ll get:

A master class on hand-quilting with big, colorful stitches.
5 HD video lessons you can access online anytime, anywhere
Detailed supplies list
Step-by-step expert instruction from Tara Faughnan
The ability to leave comments, ask questions, and interact with other students

Take the class here.

Making quilts with clothing is something that is very important to me. It’s how I support myself and my kids, but it also feels the right thing to do with unwanted clothing. Filling more landfills doesn’t feel like the answer. Making a quilt always does.

Support a small shop

Shop Fenceline Fabrics. This sweet shop is located in Kansas. You can purchase fabrics in person and online. There is a massive Cotton and Steel section + fabrics that you are might not used to finding, like bark cloth, waterproof, linen and more.

If you have never made a memory quilt you might have questions about this process. I thought I’d detail it a little bit in this post.

If you are working with shirts with knits, like tshirts, the process is made much more difficult every step of the way. It can still be done, I certainly do it often enough, but when I’m working with small pieces like this quilt or triangles, I would definitely not want to use that kind of clothing.

The clothing in this quilt is all very similar to quilting cotton (although you may have seen that one snafoo I put in my IG stories the other day). This make’s things more of a breeze. The only difficulty would be cutting large pieces of fabric from the clothing.

On the dress shirts, I cut out the back of the shirt, avoiding seams, press it, then cut my squares. On the pants, I cut the legs, avoiding seams, press, then cut into squares. I avoid seams because I don’t want them for one thing, but I don’t like making my rotary cutter work extra hard either.