Making A Memory Pillow

… or you could call it a Keepsake Pillow.

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Word Cloud text on a pillow via Iron-On Transfer

Years ago, I wanted to make a memory quilt with prayers and well-wishes for my aunt and uncle. At the time, my uncle was battling an illness. Thankfully, he recovered – and then the project lay in my “to-do” pile. Fast forward to this year. We celebrated his 60th birthday. (Time has been very good to him. He stays active, keeps good company, and stays youthful with his 20-something-year-old kids.)

I resurrected the gift idea. You know, something thoughtful… but I downsized it to something manageable, like a pillow. A pillow cover, I could do; this time I added a zipper instead of doing an envelope enclosure.

Materials used: 20 in. square pillow form, fabric, iron-on sheets for an ink-jet printer, 22 in. all-purpose zipper

Materials used in the memory pillow project

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Wish I could say I documented all the steps, but this was really a free-flow, stream of consciousness project. No definite measurements, but I could probably go back and figure it out. Should I?

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

The front and back of the pillow cover are giant quilt squares. 20-1/2” square, to be exact. Something so heartfelt about handwriting on fabric. And, then to pair it with printed text… Kinda wonky, kinda cool. I worked out our family and friends’ names on wordle.net, and while I love color, I just ran out of colored ink for our printer. So black and white, it was.

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

(This zipper tutorial was really helpful.)

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Hooray, it worked!

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

Handcrafted Keepsake Pillow

This is why you unzip before sewing

Keepsake Pillow makes a thoughtful gift

Another thoughtful project completed. On to the next one…

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