Many of our clients have a difficult time parting with their items, this is especially true when it comes to keepsakes. We spoke with Harlan Sexton of Lavivi Love Quilts about some new options.
For the busy person, what is Lavivi Love Quilts?
Photo credit: Ray Singh
Lavivi Love Quilts is a studio that makes memory quilts on commission. These are quilts made for a client using clothes - and sometimes household textiles - from a loved one who has died. So each quilt is unique and has deep meaning. These quilts help the family tell their story of love.
A quilt is basically three layers: the top, the back, and the batting in-between. The quilts are made traditionally, even though the top “fabric” is composed of shirts, dresses, ties, table linens, etc. At Lavivi Love Quilts, we are inspired by the best of historic American quilt patterns. Our quilts have a classic look… like they’ve always been in the family. You can expect an heirloom quality quilt, but without the fragility of an antique. Please - wrap up on the couch, layer it on your bed, display it on the wall.
That said, sometimes a client will want a quilt that is more of a tribute or mile-marker quilt - the toddler who is now in kindergarten, an important year or season, a special trip that yielded memories of colors, sights, images that the client wants expressed in fabric. Then we work with outgrown clothes, uniforms, or other mementos. But even these mile-marker quilts have the same mission as the memory quilts: to tell someone’s story.
What is your background, how did you start the company?
Photo credit: Carmen Salaberrios
Quilt-making and I discovered each other about 10 years ago. At first I made quilts for my family. Once I knew what I was doing, I added making quilts for the Quilts of Valor Foundation. At a certain point, I knew I could design a quilt myself and work with non-traditional fabrics. There is a joy in creating something new, based on classic patterns, for someone else.
The business began as many artisan businesses do… making gifts for family and friends, passing along to them various experiments that turned out successfully. Then it grew organically into paying clients. I decided this year that the business needed a website and an Instagram page. I have exhibited at two conferences for professional organizers affiliated with NAPO.
Sometimes people want to know how I learned to sew. When I was in high school, my best friend and I took garment sewing lessons. This was one of several plots concocted by our mothers for us to learn basic life skills. I hated garment sewing - so many tears! - but I’m glad I learned my way around a sewing machine. It’s a great power tool for creativity.
What is the process for someone who would like a quilt?
Call me or send a message via the Lavivi Love Quilts website. We’ll start by talking about the person you are remembering. We’ll talk about the garments and textiles you have from her or him. We’ll take a look at the quilt tops on the website (more patterns will be added this spring!) to see which ones speak to you. And we’ll talk about who the quilt is for, which garments have the most significance, which can best be used to make a sturdy quilt or wall-hanging - it’s a pretty wide-ranging and sensitive conversation about something that can be difficult for the prospective client.
Once the client is ready - and this can take anywhere from a few weeks to months - the client sends me the selected garments, and I get to work. Completion generally takes 8 - 10 weeks. During this time I stay in touch with the client.
What is the Quilts of Valor Foundation & Quilters by the Sea QOV?
Photo credit: Carmen Salaberrios
QOVF is a nation-wide organization of volunteer quiltmakers. Since 2003, the Quilts of Valor Foundation mission has been to award Quilts of Valor to service members and veterans touched by war. These quilts are entirely made by volunteers to honor, comfort, and give thanks to our Armed Forces. We are part of a long proud American tradition of civilian-made quilts for those who fight and serve. Over 240,000 Quilts of Valor have been awarded in military hospitals, in Iraq and Afghanistan, in all 50 states, to veterans of all wars and conflicts. I have been a QOVF member since 2016.
In 2017, I joined the American Legion Auxiliary in my community. My unit has been hugely encouraging of the Quilts of Valor project. After I explained at one meeting about the quilts I had made (one to a WWII veteran living in Iowa and another to a VA patient in New York), women came up to me to tell me they really wanted to help, but they didn’t know how to sew. At first I was stymied because I couldn’t see how to make a quilt if you didn’t know how to operate a sewing machine. Then I told myself to snap out of it… how often do you get volunteers begging you to show them how to help? I had to figure this out.
Fast forward two years. We have a wonderful group now, an official local QOVF group called Quilters by the Sea QOV because we are a nautical community. We get together four times a year in a modern version of the old-fashioned quilting bee: some members prepare the fabric, some sew, some iron, some do the layout. We have awarded eight Quilts of Valor to local veterans. I’m so proud of our group! And the veterans and their families are deeply honored.
Can you discuss some of the most interesting quilts you have created?
Photo credit: Harlan Sexton
Recently an extended family commissioned me to make a quilt in memory of the matriarch. She had died before the next grandchild was born. They gave me some of her dresses to make into a baby blanket for this one who would never know her. One of them is a scrapbooker - so she made an album to tell the grandmother’s story to that grandchild - she even found some photos of the grandmother wearing the clothes that went into the quilt. The memory quilt will be part of the family’s story-telling when they talk about their matriarch and how her love even now surrounds this last grandchild.
