I’m a natural hoarder, so being a new mum I want to keep EVERYTHING – every babygro, every onesie, every adorable dress etc. However my house is now heaving with stuff and we simply don’t have space, plus I’ve been looking for a new crafty project to get my teeth into, so I decided to make a little memory quilt for my daughter using clothes she has grown out of. (Or more fashionably known as “Upcycling”).

After a little searching in the interweb I found a really cute pattern called a Panda Pop Quilt and I am thrilled with how it looks (although I have adapted the pattern a little).

Here are some of the clothes I cut up:

Lots of cutting out the shapes using a cardboard template and rotary cutter. (It’s a clamshell quilt pattern in case you are wondering, and it’s technically applique not quilting but I doubt most of you care!).

Next I made the panda faces…

Then we start joining things up and checking carefully as we go that it’s not going wonky – lots of careful measuring and pinning things into place. It’s easy for this pattern to end up wonky!

It’s very satisfying to see it growing!

And then to hand-embroider the faces onto the pandas. I’m not brilliant at hand-embroidery but I don’t think they are too bad!

And then I stitched on the backing and wadding and finished off the edges and it’s done! It’s a really lovely way to keep those precious memories and baby clothes without hoarding too much – and I have pictures of her wearing most of the clothes so can identify which dress she wore on her 2nd birthday, or in our first summer together etc.

And here it is in action as my gorgeous baby girl had a nap this afternoon snuggled up in it!