Memory Quilts with pictures of family members, special occasions, pets...all sorts of things, are in all the magazines.  How do you get from what is in the magazine to something that will be your personal Memory Quilt?  It's easier than you think.

The first thing to do is to pick out some pictures, paper souvenirs...whatever means something to you for the quilt you want to do.  When you have these together, then you will have to scan them into your computer, or you can take them to a copy center to have scanned onto a disk. 

You will need fabric sheets to print your fabric for the quilt project.  There are a variety of fabric sheets sold today at a variety of prices.  (I make blocks with Printed Treasures sheets and also sell them; this is what I recommend, but there are other products as well.)  If you have your own ink jet printer, you can feed the sheets into your printer according to the manufacturer instructions and then print your images right onto the sheets.  I recommend using fresh ink cartridges in your printer to get the crispest images that you can.  This is another step that could be done at your local copy center if you don't have a good quality printer. 

You can use these printed fabric sheets in a number of ways...for a pillow, tote bag, whatever...but we are talking Memory Quilts here.  Use the fabric just as you would any quilt fabric.  The images printed on fabric work best when you use them as the center square of your quilt blocks...log cabin, star, whatever design you use will probably require some adjusting as the center blocks will no doubt be larger than usual.  I like to use fabric that matches the era of whatever pictures you are using...30's or feedsack repro prints for WWII vintage photos, bright 50's retro designs for 50's or 60's era pictures....or if you are doing a quilt about your pet it is easy to find dog, cat, bird, whatever fabric that will fit.  This makes the quilt even more personal.

You can take it from here....just sew your blocks and assemble them as you would any quilt project.  An important last step with any Memory Quilt is to make a detailed label so that future generations will know not only who or what the quilt is about, but who made it.