Memory Quilts and Photo Quilts:

Memory Quilts encompass the full circle of life from a quilt made of your favorite baby’s clothing, commemorating a graduation or wedding, or remembering a loved one by using their favorite clothing.  Pictures further enhance your quilt by telling stories in their own visual way.

Bear Paws Studio custom designs all of these types of memory quilts.  The quilt design starts with what you would like to express in your quilt.

Memory Quilt Considerations:

Fabrics – We use clothing that you send to us along with fabrics that match the color palette.  Cotton fabrics work best but not all clothing is made from cotton!  We will discuss the type of clothing that you have and how it will work in the design that you choose. We take the extra step of backing any type of knit or sheer material with a thin but sturdy pima cotton to ensure stability during the construction process and long wear of the quilt.  Heavier and/or thicker fabrics such as denim or polar fleece work well with larger patches that we recommend for the back of the quilt. 

Photos – we take your photos, print them on a specially treated cotton fabric and then incorporate them into your quilt.  The widest that we can print a picture is 8 inches. The length is varied, based on the picture size.  Normally we use an 8” block for a picture.  Some requirements to keep in mind:

You can email pictures or send them to us in the mail. Due to copyright laws, we cannot reprint professional or studio pictures without the written consent from the photographer. We have the ability to process pictures through photo-editing software to eliminate unwanted subjects and items such as baby bottles sticking out in the back of a baby’s head.  This work is time consuming and we may charge additional fees for extensive photo rework.  Normal cropping, highlighting, and re-coloring (really color faded pictures) is included in the cost of the photo process. The fabric printing quality of some photos may disintegrate based on the condition of the original when resized.  Our usual solution to this problem is to make the photo smaller and place an additional border or framing around the picture.  We will let you know in advance if we have any concerns with your pictures.

A frequently asked question is why don’t we ever place pictures of our customer’s quilts on our web site.  Our answer is simple in that we respect the privacy of all of our customers and their families and do not put pictures of photo quilts on our web site.  With the exceptions of our own designer's family and our biggest fans at the swim studio La Petite Baleen in the San Francisco area -we plaster their quilt pictures everywhere!