Quilts, bears, and keepsakes, made from the clothes of the people you love.
Babygrows, school shirts, Dad's checked shirts, a favourite dress... instead of sitting in a box at the back of the cupboard, they could become something you use every day.
What I make
- Memory quilts
- Memory bears, cushions, and fabric journals
- Coasters from the leftover fabric, to share with family and friends
- Visible mending and embroidery on your favourite clothes
- Little one-off pieces: lab coats, patchwork, tags
or email creachin.designs@gmail.com
I'm Cinzia, but most people call me Chin. I sew every piece myself, from home in Paarl.
Memory quilts
This is the heart of what I do. A memory quilt can be a whole childhood of baby clothes, a husband's work shirts, or every special outfit a mom lovingly stored away "for such a time as this" and then handed to me for her daughter's 21st.
I like to keep the bits that make a piece of clothing theirs: the little label, the pocket, the button, the number on the sports shirt. If there's a hole, I don't hide it. I patch it from behind and turn it into something pretty. Even the back of the quilt is pieced from the clothing, instead of one plain piece of fabric. One quilt was built around a dad who loved hiking: a circle of shirt buttons is the trail sign for "Gone Home", and the blocks are called Jewel Star, after the star cluster he and his daughter used to look for together.
One of my favourite kinds of memory quilt is a 21st birthday gift. This one was made from jeans belonging to several family members, including a pair of white jeans, and those squares really pop! The sashing between them is a cotton-linen ticking stripe. It was rated "wow, that's so cool" by the lucky young man.
Coasters, bears, cushions, and journals
Grief from losing someone touches lots of people, not just the immediate family, and most of them won't have access to the quilt. So I make coasters from the leftover fabric. Who doesn't use coasters? Something really practical that pings the heart every time you have coffee, and you remember having coffee with that particular person.
It also means nothing goes to waste, which satisfies my upcycling heart!
I also make memory bears, cushions, and fabric journals. Ask me, the possibilities really are endless.
Mending your favourites
Mending clothing is like giving it oxygen! If you've got a favourite piece that's falling apart, I'd much rather fix it so you can keep wearing it.
Amila's VERY holey cardigan got sunflowers embroidered over every hole. My friend Sonnika tore her favourite dress, and I asked, "Can I do visible mending?" It now says you are my sunshine across the front. And as a Person of Challenged Height, I had to shorten my own jeans... so they got wildflowers.
Little things
Hand-stitched nurse cats and dogs on a lab coat for someone who works in a blood lab. I had just the right fabric, and we both thought it was perfect. A crazy patchwork waistcoat for my cousin in Italy, with a beaded South African flag, a six-legged button spider and a noughts and crosses game, because she always won and always wanted to be X. Tiny free-motion tags made from fabric scraps people give me (now they know what I do with their cut-offs!).
If you have a fun memory that could become a textile piece, tell me about it. More of what I make is on Instagram and Facebook.
How it works
Send me a WhatsApp and tell me about the person and what you've got: a bag of baby clothes, a few shirts, one special dress. We'll chat about what you'd like to make and how you'll use it.
Attention to detail and the finishing touches matter a lot to me. I still finish my bindings by hand, there's nothing more satisfying.
Kind words
Cinzia made me an amazing memory quilt with my daughter's baby clothing. It is something I will treasure for years to come. I am so glad to have those baby clothes out of a box collecting dust and into something I can see out in my home!
CreaChin added adorable medical themed pets to my lab coat by hand. She also made me a great mask. The outside is black with cats on the inside (for all those crazy cat ladies like me). My order was creatively packaged. The best part: friendly service.
A bit about me
I'm Italian, and yes, we are a noisy family! Some of my favourite memories are of Christmases with the whole family playing Italian card games... lots of people, love, food and plenty of noise.
Funny thing: I did sewing at school and hated it. My love for sewing only came years later. My sister and I still call each other Horace and Doris because of a bird we found on the way home from school, which I suppose is exactly the kind of memory I like to stitch into things.
I love memories, and I love sharing them. If this is something you've been looking for, send me a message and together we can bring your memories from heart to hand.
