How To Make An EASY Patchwork Memory Quilt

This is one of the easiest and most rewarding Modern Country Crafts you'll ever do: your very own patchwork memory quilt.

I say easy because the only sewing involved is straight lines.

It's rewarding because it involves the repurposing of all those little treasures that have been stashed away. Little scraps of well-loved baby bedding, those beautiful but impossibly teeny baby clothes plus any left over bits and pieces you'd like to use up to create a work of art that you'll marvel at for decades to come.

This is all you need to do:

Cut out lots and lots and lots of rectangles of non-stretchy fabric. The bigger they are, the less sewing you'll have to do and the faster it'll all come together. I like the higgledy-piggledy effect of lots of different widths of rectangle but what matters is that the height should be consistent. Mine are 12cms high.

Iron all your pieces. 

{Don't miss this step as it'll make a huge different to the quality of the finished piece.}

Lay two of the rectangles right sides together and pin up the left side 1cm in from the edge. Sew up this line.

Take the next rectangle and pin it to the right hand edge of your mini quilt 1cm in from the edge. Sew in place.

Keep going until you have a long strip of rectangles of the desired width. Make lots of rows in this way. Then pin two rows together 1cm in from the edge, Sew along this line. Keep sewing rows together until the quilt is the desired length.

Cut a large piece of fabric for the backing. This needs to be the size of the finished quilt plus 5cm in each direction. Lay the quilt and backing right sides together, pin 2.5 cm in from the edge and sew together, leaving one side unsewn. Turn it the right way and hand sew the last side. I also included a layer of thick wadding at this point which makes the whole quilt seem much more substantial.

Sew a variety of buttons onto the quilt, through all layers to hold it all in place and then dance for joy at what your clever hands have produced: a perfect and easy-peasy patchwork memory quilt, and ooh and aah over those sweet little memories ready for teary reminiscing at a moment's notice.

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