Stay-at-home Sudbury mom makes career change to create T-shirt and memory quilts
Inside her Sudbury home workshop, Jana Blanchette carefully guides what’s known in the sewing world as a "long arm frame."
Using computer-aided design, the huge sewing machine is stitching together someone’s past into a quilt for the future.
At JLB Custom Quilts, Blanchette is handcrafting one-of-a-kind, custom T-shirt and memory quilts.
“Quilting has been a part of my life since my early 20s. It wasn’t until I was asked to make a t-shirt quilt that it really turned into something,” Blanchette said.
Blanchette, a former chemist researcher for a pharmaceutical company, first started to sew and make quilts as a hobby. In 2013, she was asked by her son’s teacher if she could make a t-shirt quilt.
“Well, I’ve been sewing my whole life. I’ve been quilting my whole life. And I was like, ‘I’m sure I could figure it out,’” she said.
Not only did she figure it out, but soon word also spread of her talents, and people were sending t-shirt collections from all over the country for their own personalized quilt.
“People have all of these t-shirts that are tied up with their memories, and they’re like, ‘I don’t want to throw them away. We’re not wearing them anymore. Can we do something with it?’” Blanchette said.
Putting together the story of someone’s past has also grown to include quilts with the memories of someone who has passed.
Deciding to expand beyond fun t-shirt designs for graduates, Blanchette finds creating memory quilts for surviving loved ones both rewarding and therapeutic.
“Right now, I’m getting ready to start on a project for a customer’s father who passed away and is doing something for her mother out of his clothes,” she said.
To date, JLB Custom Quilts has created close to 300 quilts. Each one filled with unique memories; each one stitched with a story to tell. When asked what it’s like to present the quilts to her customers Blanchette says, “I get lots of tears. Happy tears.”
There are no signs of slowing down at JLB Custom Quilts. With a few memory quilt projects lined up for the fall, Blanchette already has a number of graduation bookings in the works for next year and the class of 2025.