WIP Wednesday: Memory Quilt

I've made a fair amount of progress on my Japanese Sister Tree Quilt this week, but today I wanted to share a finish that's been in my WIP pile for a while!

It's the memory quilt for my dear friend Linda who was our church organist and choir director for 24 years.  The pattern is based on Amy Smart's lovely chain linked design, but my blocks were a different size so I just sort of worked out the math.  I mentioned previously that members of our church parish signed blocks for her and left messages/pictures, so those are in all the centers.

I did a zig-zag binding, which was easy-ish, but I got the edges stretched out a bit.  When it was all finished, I washed it, and was upset to see that some of the "permanent" markers had run a bit.  I heat-set all the blocks, and tested several of the markers before having people use them on the quilt so I thought they'd be ok.  Unfortunately, I didn't test every single color, and the running was definitely a color-specific phenomenon (the teal was the absolute worst!).  I'm really sad about this actually, but I think she can still read almost all of the blocks.  It did crinkle up nicely after washing, and it's pretty soft and cuddly (in contrast to most of my quilts which are so filled with quilting and fusible that they're fairly stiff).

I still miss Linda a ton, and hopefully this will remind her how much she matters to us!

Incidentally, it was my first ever pieced back (i.e. not solid) and it was fun to put some interesting things back there. 

And finally, some of the pictures and folded paper flowers (printed on copies of her favorite hymns) we made as centerpieces for the celebration on her last day at church.

Linking up with Lee as ever!