There are many factors that come into play in the preliminary planning stage of your Memory Quilt:
I chose to size my quilt to fit a queen size bed. Below is a link that will help you determine the dimensions needed for various quilt sizes.
There are two main things to think about in the design phase of your planning. The first decision you must make is the overall design of the quilt. When evaluating design options, you must think about how to incorporate your photographs. Once you have chosen a basic design, it is a good idea to use quilters graph paper to make a preliminary sketch of your vision. This will help you begin to visualize your finished project, and will help with your second decision, what fabrics to use. After you have sketched your design and chosen your fabric, there are wonderful online yardage calculators to help you determine how much of each fabric you will need. I chose a simple star pattern with a center photograph for my basic design. I chose to hand quilt embellishments onto my heart fabric, and then machine quilt the rest of my project. Below are some links to help you with this phase of your project