Several years ago I made a quilt with this design for a little girl.  Now, I was lucky enough to make one for her younger sister.  This memory quilt is filled with onesies, pjs, and even a unicorn costume!  Her mom picked out hospital textiles and a few other recognizable items for the back.  Such a sweet family.  Repeat customers make this labor of love even more extra meaningful to me.  

This is a truly unique newborn baby gift because it's made for baby from mom and dad's meaningful clothing!  In this case, the birds are made from wedding and bar mitzvah yarmulkes and the wings are textiles with shared importance to the couple like fabric from their first apartment together.  The clothing bordering the birds is a combination of baby clothes, events, college and travel memories.  The baby's gender is a surprise so I worked hard to keep it as gender neutral as possible.

I'm not the most organized type A person so usually when tasked with hosting a baby shower I grin and bear it.  But everything changed when asked to help with my friend Samantha's shower.  The mom to be was hoping to have a onesie decorating station where guests could craft and create tiny clothes for the newborn.  I've seen this before with stencils and puffy paint and have always thought the results were less than desirable. There might be a few really cute ones but they'd be mixed in with a bunch of mess.  I decided to do a few things differently for this gender neutral shower activity.

Samantha is a pretty holistic, all natural person.  I thought it would look cute to have the clothes be different colors but I didn't want to use any harsh chemical dyes.  I decided to try dyeing with natural ingredients like vegetables, fruits, and flowers.  This site was a great resource.  I basically turned our kitchen into a science lab and created dye after dye 24/7.  I couldn't think of anything else and we ate really healthily that week so that I had a ton of onion skins and avocado pits to boil.  The bright yellow - turmeric!  How cool is that?

After the dyeing, I created a bunch of fabric applique shapes that people could adhere to the clothes.  I also lined  a bunch of fabric with adhesive paper so guests could create their own designs, which they did!  This activity, both the prep, and the day of, was so much fun. Samantha is thrilled that her babe will be outfitted for his/her first year and now I don't have to cringe when asked to host a shower.  

Dyllan's mom, Dina, sent me the most beautiful collection of baby and mama textiles including his "coming home outfit" and receiving blanket, and her "good luck dress" that she wore to doctor appointments, and the dress she wore to the hospital.    

Dina asked me to make a quilted wall hanging and pillows that would add both meaning and style to Dyllan's nursery.  She hopes that one day when he is older Dyllan will be able to take the pieces with him.
  
I really enjoyed working on this project for a very sweet family, and I think that their modern keepsakes turned out so chic.  I hope Dyllan and his parents get a ton of pleasure out of seeing them everyday.