As children grow or family occasions pass, your closets become packed with the special clothing that no longer fits or fabric items that were part of special memories. Dig out those mementos and make fabric memory collages using fabric pieces cut from the saved items. A fabric collage is similar to a page in a scrapbook. It can be specific to one person, a group of people or a celebrated occasion. Make one as a gift to mark a milestone in the recipient's life or as a gift for a birthday or anniversary.
Instructions
1. Cut an 8 1/2-inch-wide by 11-inch-long rectangle from freezer paper and one from muslin.
2. Lay the muslin on your ironing surface. Place the freezer paper rectangle on the muslin with the wax side facing down. Align the edges. Iron the freezer paper to the muslin. The muslin is now your printer paper. The freezer paper provides the stiffness needed for the fabric to feed through your printer. Place the muslin paper in your printer with the fabric side positioned to be printed on.
3. Scan a special photo to be the centerpiece of your memory collage. Resize the photo to 5 inches wide by 7 inches long. Choose the color or the black-and-white setting on your printer and print the photo on the muslin paper. Peel off the freezer paper and cut the excess muslin away from the printed photo.
4. Cut two 12-inch-wide by 14-inch-long rectangles from muslin fabric and one the same size from low-loft quilt batting. Sandwich the batting between the two muslin rectangles and align the edges.
5. Center the printed fabric photo on the top muslin rectangle. Pin the edges of the photo through all the layers of the fabric sandwich. Sew around the pinned edges of the photo as close to the edge as possible using a sewing machine.
6. Cut clothing and other fabric keepsakes into pieces approximately the size of a playing card. The measurements do not need to be exact and the shape does not need to look like a playing card.
7. Cut enough fabric scraps to fill the space between the edges of the photo and the edges of the muslin sandwich. Arrange the fabric scraps around the photo. Allow the edges of the fabric scraps to overlap, creating a memory collage around the photo.
8. Remove one fabric scrap and apply fabric glue to the edges on the wrong side. Replace the scrap and continue applying glue to the back of the remaining fabric pieces. Allow the glue to dry.
9. Sew along the exposed edges of each overlapping fabric scrap using a sewing machine and thread that coordinates with the collage colors. The stitching will quilt the sandwich together.
10. Lay the fabric collage with the back side facing up. Using the edge of the muslin rectangle as a guide, trim off the excess from the fabric scraps that extend past the edge. Sew around the edges of the collage 1/4 inch from the edge. The edges of the collage will remain raw.
11. Lay the collage with the front facing up. Randomly arrange buttons, beads and charms in a pleasing arrangement. Attach the embellishments using craft glue. Allow the glue to dry.
12. Attach the collage to a miniature quilt hanger with hanger clips.
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