Dad's Plaids become Mom's quilt

It was 2 years ago today that my father left this earth.  He had a peaceful passing at 87 years old, but we still miss him every day.  This is especially true of my mother who was happily married to him for 63 years.

As you can see from the photo, Dad loved a plaid shirt.  His closet was full of flannel ones:

I wanted to use them to make a quilt, but it was hard to think about cutting into them.  This past Christmas, I decided it was finally time to make the quilt.  I wanted to showcase the plaids as much as possible, so I cut out large squares using the sleeves and bordered them with black flannel:

This was my first time using flannel.  I found that cutting narrow strips from the loosely woven fabric  was a bit difficult.  Then I remembered that I had recently acquired a Stripology ruler.  I hadn't even tried it yet, but this was the exact right time to use it.

I only mention this because one of my Dad's favorite expressions was "the right tool for the right job".  It seemed so perfect that I had the exact tool for this job while making a quilt from Dad's shirts.  He would have greatly appreciated that.  The strips were then easily cut, all at the same time.

I laid the blocks out to give a basket weave effect:

With Christmas fast approaching, I needed to get this quilted quickly.  My friend, Rosemary was kind enough to do a beautiful job of stippling to get the project done with a quick turnaround time.

On Christmas Eve, I gave the quilt to my mother.  She was immensely surprised, pleased and, of course, emotional.  She told me she loved it, and has been using it on her bed ever since. She tells me that she sleeps better with the quilt over her.  I could not have asked for anything more.

I have kept all the remaining shirt fabrics for some future keepsakes, even the small scraps.  It was a healing experience for me to work with them and I'm so happy with how it all turned out.