All of us moms have to deal with this.  What do you do with the adorable clothes once your teensy infant goes through that 3-6 month growth spurt and nothing fits anymore?  Or the special clothes for first holidays, family portraits, and the outfits that seem to be in every picture?  Some special clothes can be kept as hand-me-downs for the future.  My mother saved the little white dress with blue smocking that I wore to my christening and I have that safely put away, along with one that my Grandpa George wore.  I saved a couple of Melody’s special dresses too.  On the one hand, I am definitely in tune with preserving things for the future, and on the other hand I just don’t have the space to keep every cute shirt or dress Melody ever wore.

The solution?  I found a company called Williow Creek Baby long before I was even pregnant.  They will take your favorite clothes and turn them into a keepsake that is also practical.  They make chenille backed quilts and crib blankets out of the clothes.  I loved the idea so much I planned for it.  I made sure to get one of the “baby’s first” shirts for every holiday that came up and I saved something from each month of Melody’s first year of life, plus a few other items, then sent them all off to Williow Creek Baby.  For my own reference, I had jotted down on the back of the order form what each item was – receiving blanket from the hospital where she was born, the bib she wore the first time she had solid food (peas), the Gymboree octopus hat she wore during a certain lunch…  And the wonderful ladies at Willow Creek noticed my jottings and put the pieces in that order.  So Melody’s blanket starts at the top left corner with the receiving blanket she was wrapped in on the day she was born, and ends at the bottom right corner with her First Birthday shirt.  In between are the memories of Easter at Gramma Marie’s, Fourth of July on Papa’s knee, the OC Fair with Auntie, learning to crawl, learning to walk, eating solids, looking pretty, and stealing our hearts.

This is about half of the blanket

So if you are facing the challenge of what to do with clothes long outgrown but that you just can’t part with, I definitely recommend this.  The service from Willow Creek Baby was fantastic, the finished product is gorgeous and practical, and there is no longer a storage problem.  They also will make a larger blanket from adult clothes, kind of fun if you are into collecting tee shirts on your travels or from your favorite sports teams.

If you are curious, Melody likes her blanket, but prefers another one for sleeping, which was simply an issue of timing since we had her other quilt first.  We often hang her memory blanket as decoration on big quilt clips in her bedroom.  It’s a precious memory and she is starting to ask what the different clothing items are.  Talking about them with her is better than looking at pictures, but it’s also fun to show her a picture of her wearing a certain item that is on the blanket.

Here she is enjoying her blanket of “old” clothes.