Mini Keepsake Quilt-Along ~ Passage Quilting™ Tutorial ~ Part 1

I am so impressed with all of the comments about ideas and materials for keepsake quilts, by those of you who entered the Whip Up Mini Quilt Book Giveaway. The possibilities are endless.

Choosing Your Materials

If you have gathered your materials and are ready to begin, guess what? You have already completed the first, and one of the most significant steps, of the process. For those of you still on the fence, choose materials and pieces of clothing that resonate most strongly with memory and meaning. These will be the heart of your piece.

• Choose the most resonant materials for the heart of your piece.
• Supplement with less resonant pieces but good colors, texture, pattern, etc.
• Don't limit yourself to woven cotton materials. Anything goes except for leather.
• For a mini quilt try to limit yourself to two or three pieces.
• Beware of too many t-shirt logos.

For the Mini Quilt that I created for Kathreen's book, I asked my friend Liz to provide only two pieces of clothing, one from her son's infancy and one from her pregnancy. These two pieces represented her passage into motherhood, while celebrating the life of her first child.

A mini quilt is a small format so I recommend that you limit yourself to two or three pieces of clothing. Include more pieces if you want to make a larger quilt. The finished size of my mini quilt is only 30" x 24".

Cutting the Clothing Apart

You can always cut your clothing into small squares and create a nine-patch keepsake quilt. However, Passage Quilting™ is about the process of transition, growth and healing. For this reason I work with the architecture of the clothing to create an improvised quilt without a predetermined pattern.

• As you begin to cut your clothing apart consider which architectural features you want to include in your quilt and cut accordingly.
• Cut the clothes along seam lines.
• Remove extra linings and bulky seams.
• Prep, cut apart, all of your materials before moving to the piecework.

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Next Monday, in Part 2 of the Keepsake Quilt-Along, we will begin making blocks or sections from our clothing parts. I will also review tips on improvisation and curve piecing techniques.

What was it like to cut apart your meaningful materials? Was it liberating? Scary? Sad? Joyous? A relief? A surprise? A mixture of emotions? Please share!