Mom's 2008 Mother's Day Legacy Quilt...the creation.
One day I was sitting around thinking of what to do for Mother's day...when I came up with the idea of making mom a legacy quilt, showing all her children and their children and their children. I sketched out my idea on paper.
I searched for the fabrics. After finding the ones I wanted, I took pictures of each and inserted them into layered frames in a Microsoft Word document, to get a better idea of how it would all look.
Granted, some misjudged sizing meant I had to modify the original design a bit, as the photo line up changed some, which made the length longer than expected. What can I say...I'm not much for precise measurements and enjoy winging it. But it's still coming out close to my original idea and fits mom's bed perfectly.
I had to gather up photos for each of mom's children, grand children and great grand children. Letters/emails were sent to everyone to give them an opportunity to choose the photos they wanted to appear on the quilt. Those who didn't supply their favorite photo, meant their photo was my choice. So I grabbed a few needed pictures from mom's house to make sure I had one for everyone.
For the first generation, I used our high school graduation photos, since we're all much older now and using those seemed like the best way to all have similar photos in time.
Once each photo was sized as needed, they were inserted into a Microsoft Word document that had diamonds sized for each generation...smaller diamonds as each generation got farther down the line.
To transfer the images to fabric, I purchased a crisp, white quilting fabric and cut pieces to 8.5 x 11" for standard printer paper, using my rotary cutter and a cardboard template cut to the proper size. I also cut out a piece of freezer paper, the type you can purchase at a grocery store.
The freezer paper has a shiny side that can be stuck to the fabric by heating it with an iron. The freezer paper was placed on the white fabric and heated with an iron to fuse it to the fabric. Any excess was trimmed. This stiff "fabric paper" could now be fed into our color laser printer.
Note! Craft stores have packages of printable fabric that you can purchase. However, those are ONLY for Ink Jet printers. A laser is much hotter and would melt those pages, causing them to mess up your printer. If you have a laser printer, you need to use freezer paper, which can handle the more intense heat.
The freezer paper fabric pages are fed into the printer as the Word doc pages are sent to the printer...one by one to ensure they come out correctly, using manual feed to also ensure proper printing.
Once all the photos were printed on fabric, the image is cut out and the freezer paper is pulled away from the fabric.
For the lettering on the main panel, I created Word document pages for each word that would be sewn onto the gold fabric. The pages were cut, lined up and pinned in place. One by one, I sewed a thin stitch on the machine, through the outline of the paper.
I then tore paper away from the stitches. That left me with a thin outline of the lettering.
I then sewed over the thin lettering using a tight zigzag, embroidery stitch and embroidery foot with the feed dogs down, so I could move the fabric around as needed to make the lettering. Note that quilting gloves are essential to hold the fabric tight and move it as you stitch the lettering to avoid it from being eaten by your machine!
Mom & Dad's wedding photo was printed onto fabric and sewed into the main panel. I added a very light fusing material on the back of the photos to hold them in place prior to adding a thin zigzag border around the photos.
Border fabric was added around each panel.
Greg helps me align the photos in their proper location. With the fusible material on the back of the photos, they can be temporarily stuck in place, but also easily moved until sewn.
The black border on each photo is covered with black thread in a tight zigzag around the diamond photo for each person.
A closer look. A clear appliqué foot helps to more easily see what you're doing, so you stay on the border.
Each panel holds the photos of that generation, on a blue fabric. Each panel uses a lighter blue fabric to simulate the fact that each generation...the future...is getting brighter. Here are the grand kids.
And here are the great grand kids. Note that the last photo space is left open since Erin is currently pregnant, due in August. That will be the last photo added to the quilt, since she is already with child. I'll fuse that photo to the quilt months after it is done, using a permanent fabric glue. I'll zigzag the border separately to the image so it matches the others. But I'll glue it on and slip in a hidden, hand stitch to the top later to keep it in place. Since this quilt will rarely be washed...as mom will use it as a fancy bed cover she'll remove before sleep...it should hold up nicely.
Thankfully, the dining room table (with extension added) just about holds the quilt as Greg helped me lay out the layers...the backing, the batting and the quilt top. Gold fabric separates each panel and red and gold floral fabrics are used on the sides to add width.
A closer look at each panel.
Mom and Dad's Legacy...
Their children...
Their children's children...
And their children's, children's, children!
A better view of the side panels. Red fabric with gold flowers and gold fabric with red flowers makes a pretty border on each side.
Now it's time to pin it all in place so it can be quilted. Tons of special, quilting "bent" safety pins are placed over the entire quilt, a few inches apart to make sure none of the layers shift during the quilting process.
The quilt is rolled and clipped with large plastic clips, specially made for holding quilts, as you sew the quilting patterns in place. Note...originally I thought of using tear-away design paper, but after testing it on extra fabric, I pulled it off, deciding that it could damage the threads and this quilt is too important for experimentation. So I plan to quilt it in lines using my walking foot with some areas stippled freehand using an embroidery foot.
The fun begins!<g> Maneuvering the piles of fabric takes practice. The quilt clips work great to keep the excess portion of the quilt out of your way as you machine quilt. A long table also comes in handy! Throwing the quilt over my shoulder, I can sew and push the finished parts straight down the length of the table. Quilting gloves allow for more easy guidance and manipulation of the quilt as you sew, since they have rubber nubs that help you grip the fabric.
Disaster STRIKES! The dogs (3 big ones) were rough-housing and managed to bump into a table and knock over my sewing machine so that it crashes to the hard, wood floor from a 3 foot height! Greg attempts to fix it, but it's pretty well trashed!
But Greg...an amazing and wonderful man...felt bad for me so he told me to pick out a new machine, then ran to Joann's, and bought me a wonderful, new sewing machine. I had a Singer Inspiration 4228, now I have an electronic Singer Confidence 7470! So I'm off and running again.
He also found me a Serger Thread stand, so I can now take advantage of the huge, much less expensive thread spools!
I sewed around each picture, within the black frame and then around the outside of the picture, so the photos get a "pillow" effect.
Although, not all my sewing was a winner. I missed seeing one safety pin (needed to hold the layers together until you sew them, to ensure the inside "batting" doesn't shift)...so I managed to sew over. But not just over it, but through it!<sigh>
Good thing Greg's also handy with wire cutters! (BTW...Greg DID manage to completely fix the smashed sewing machine. Although, luckily for me, he didn't accomplish that until after he bought me the new machine!)
The finished "Legacy" quilt on mom's bed.
Along the top, I sewed the binding on using script stitches. Rather than doing it the "regular way" by sewing the binding to the front, folding it over and hand stitching it to the back...I sewed it to the back...then used lettering stitches to sew it to the front.
Here, along the top, I used burgundy thread with "bows" and then added the lettering at the top/middle, that says "Harriet and George Fontaine's Legacy."
The first panel is their wedding photo.
Then their children's pictures. For the first generation, I used our High School graduation picture, to level the "time period," since we are now so much older now. (Yes, that one, bottom/right, is Dian's High School graduation photo.)
Everyone was given an opportunity to send me their favorite photos, versus letting me pick them out. This next panel shows all the grandchildren, in order by age...Sammie, Gina, Sean, Wendy, Pat, Erin, Kevin, Jeff and Stacy.
The last panel contains photos of all mom's current Great Grandchildren...with one spot left open (lower/right) for the upcoming photo of Erin & Travis' baby, due August 2008. That photo will be added later.
Between each photo panel, the gold fabric divider is quilted with a heart stitch in red.
Along the two sides and bottom...matching yellow thread was used to stitch the binding...using the alphabetical stitch that spells out: "We love you!" and then three hearts divide each phrase, repeated over and over along the three sides.
Needless to say, mom was thrilled with her new Legacy quilt (although you wouldn't know it because she didn't hear me say SMILE!<g>)
Even the back looks pretty nice.
And, of course, the final touch...which, as you can see, I also messed up by misjudging the spacing for my name! HA!
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