As a sentimental person, I love keepsakes and preserving memories. I want to be one of those parents who has saved all the treasured things throughout their children’s lives.
Unfortunately, this takes up more space than I have available, especially with 4 kids. So a lot of the memory keeping I do is digital and backed up and backed up and backed up 🤣
I really should write a separate post all about digital memory banks and storage solutions *stick a pin in that for later
Today, I wanted to share a weekend project I started to get my creative juices flowing for a new month of working and making. I stumbled upon the idea of making a quilt block for each year of your child’s life and then giving them the completed quilt when they graduate, move out, get married, etc.
I’ve been fascinated with quilting for ages (I blame that Winona Ryder American Quilt movie from my childhood) but just don’t have the time or patience to finish one. Cue the lightbulb moment where I decide to apply my digital art background.
With a little pinspiration, and help from Procreate and Canva, I was able to make a quilt block representing each year of each of my child’s lives.
My youngest was obviously the easiest since he’s been alive for just this year. It was hard to decide how to depict this first year but my husband helped me by offering the idea of a face mask. I modeled it on my own face since he’s pretty fascinated by the difference when we go out.
As my oldest, Minion’s was the biggest set to work on. Some years were hard to sum up while others were easier – 2016 he became a big brother for the first time, 2019 was his first year of school, 2021 is the year he started meeting several spiritual goals and working towards others.
While all my children have strong personalities, my Middling is vibrantly unique. There is so much about who he is that is just him and I had a lot of fun representing those. He was my little “Jedi” from the womb.
His best friend at 2 was a dear friend with who he always took selfies and who lost her battle to breast cancer 2 years ago. He still talks about her often. He lived in a red cape for nearly 2 years (it even made family photos), and he’s a total fish and Pokemon Master 🤣
I had the most fun with color working on my daughter’s. She’s so bold and full of attitude and I wanted her quilt to be as beautifully overpowering as she is.
I recreated the llama graphic from one online and it is everything her. The pandemic lockdown started when she was 8 months old so most of her group interaction has been through zoom. And lastly, she is obsessed with shoes. She loves them on a physical level and in the way they represent getting outside and going places. She has the itch to explore and she views shoes as her ticket to do so.
How would you visually depict the years or your kids’ or your own life?