Create Your Own Keepsake Quilt: Transform Treasured Fabrics

We all have garments and textiles that hold special memories — baby clothes packed away in a cupboard, a favourite shirt that can no longer be worn, vintage fabrics collected over the years, or clothing connected to important people, places, and milestones. Rather than leaving these cherished items tucked away, why not transform them into something beautiful that can be enjoyed every day?

In this hands-on 2-week Sentimental Keepsake Quilt Workshop, you'll learn how to turn meaningful garments and fabrics into a beautiful keepsake quilt while developing practical quilting and sewing skills in a supportive, creative environment. Working with your own treasured textiles, you'll learn how to plan a quilt layout, prepare fabrics, cut and assemble patchwork pieces, and construct a quilt that tells your own unique story.

As you progress, you'll explore how colour, pattern, texture, and fabric placement can create a meaningful design while building confidence with beginner-friendly quilting techniques. By the end of the course, you'll have completed a small cot-sized or lap quilt (approximately 60 × 80 cm) and developed the skills to continue creating keepsake quilts for family and friends at home.

Whether you're preserving baby clothes, family garments, travel souvenirs, vintage fabrics, or textiles connected to life's special moments, this course offers a rewarding introduction to quilting, creative upcycling, and memory-making through cloth.

Course content

During the course, participants will work with techniques and ideas such as:

• Selecting and preparing garments, clothing, and treasured textiles for quilting

• Assessing fabrics and stabilising delicate or stretchy materials

• Planning a quilt layout using colour, pattern, texture, and personal storytelling

• Cutting and organising patchwork pieces

• Constructing a quilt top using a sewing machine

• Preparing quilt layers, including quilt top, batting, and backing

• Learning simple quilting and finishing techniques suitable for beginners

• Troubleshooting common quilting challenges

• Exploring ideas for enlarging, customising, and creating future keepsake quilts

Intended audience

This course is ideal for anyone with treasured clothing, baby garments, family textiles, vintage fabrics, or other meaningful materials they would like to preserve in a practical and beautiful way.

Suitable for complete beginners as well as confident sewists, this course is perfect for anyone interested in quilting, creative upcycling, sustainable sewing, or creating a lasting family keepsake.

No previous quilting experience is required.