World Wide Quilting Page
Question of the Week
Question for the week of October 4, 2004:
Our question this week comes from Claire M:
Could you help me locate some examples of quilts that tell a person's life story? I think they are called biography quilts. I have no quilting experience but I would like to design and make a life story quilt for my daughter
Jill :
A good way to make a quilt like this is to make an Irish Chain (a good book is "Time for a Chain") and in the big empty spots put photos of the person the quilt is about. You can also type in stories into the empty spaces. The best way I have found to do this is to get the Inkjet Transfers from fabric-mill.com. They are machine washable and very easy to use and the price is great. They send out their orders the very same day. If you email or call them (801-225-3123) they also have the book about the Irish Chain. Try them out.
Teena Wigman :
My friend and I made my father-in-law a story quilt for his 80th birthday, celebrating the lives of he and his wife since I'd known them. We used a design from the Australian publication Patchwork and Quilting magazine called "Home is where the heart is" but drew our own designs to reflect his life. Having a pattern layout to follow helped us create our own as we were both fairly inexperienced when we started it. We designed a delft blue teaset to reflect their Dutch heritage, there were the 5 orange chickens in a yard, budgies with roses, a farm house, there was a windmill and so on. Each block reflected something about the lives of these two wonderful people. It was fun to make and ofcourse they too loved it. I accompanied it with a pictorial record of its progress, what each block represented and which of us had made it.
Betty Van Buskirk :
You could do it with pictures, they are easy to print onto fabric. Craft stores have printable fabric and all you have to do is put it in your printer and scan a picture to it. I made one for my granddaughter 's high school graduation, just using her kindergarden and Senior picture and emblems and name of her high school. I used a nine patch in the quilt. Very easy to do. You could use pictures from birth to now and include family and friends in it.
Gunn Heidi :
you can colect cloths from when she was a litle girl and up to her age now, and make a qilt for her. you can disign figurs that she can associcat with her childhood and her teens, and somthing she know now.
Nicki :
I used a pineapple block pattern, using two white strips of fabric for the center pieces of the block in a "memory" quilt for my father. At a family reunion, I had everyone write thier favorite memory or story of my dad and then sign the block in those white areas. I then constructed the quilt and presented him with it. I took a photo of him and the quilt to send to everyone who had participated. The key is to find a block that will allow you to write the story in it and not overtake the writing with its pattern. Good Luck!
bonnieamy@yahoo.com :
I made a life history quilt for my brother and I truly believe it is the best looking history quilt I have ever seen. I used the rail fence pattern and
used an embroidery machine to write the story of his life. I called it "A Path of Life" as the story winds down the quilt. If you want more info on this quilt feel free to email me
and I will send you a drawing of exactly how I did it. If you don't have access to an embroidery machine perhaps you could use archival pens to write the story. Trust me this is a very easy quilt to make.
World Wide Quilting Page * Question of the Week