Yesterday, I talked about speaking to kids about quilts, ending with reading the book “Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt”.

In most cases, I (and often a group from my guild) just talked to the kids, sometimes letting them design blocks with construction paper.

However, with the classes that held my own kids, I went in and helped them to make a quilt.

One disclaimer….the photos are not wonderful….it was a long time ago!!

The first quilt was made for my son’s Kindergarten teacher. There were only 10 kids in the class, and each used fabric crayons to draw a picture on paper. The paper was ironed onto fabric….

When Brian was in 2nd Grade, Mrs. Freshley taught the kids how to do cross stitch on gingham fabric and I took those blocks and turned them into a quilt…..

For my daughter’s 1st grade class, the kids designed 9-patch blocks using squares and triangles. I sewed them together and put them into a quilt…..

I used the same technique for another class…..

I found that, if I was well organized, with all of the blocks made and other fabrics cut, I could piece the top and quilt it in one day.

I would sit at the back of the classroom and work all day while the kids came by and helped or asked questions.

This quilt was made by an ENTIRE school of Kinder and 1st graders….

This is what I wrote about the quilt at the time…..

This is another “Fabric crayon” quilt that was given to a retiring principal….

There is one more quilt that I want to show at some point, but sadly, I can’t find the photos at the moment. I know that I digitized them and am sure they are stored in my computer…. somewhere!!

This was a very fun time in my life and I miss the days of talking to kids about quilts. I remember hearing that one little boy went home after our day together and told his mom that he would take care of all of the mending from then on!!

After yesterday’s post, one of Brian’s teachers, Mrs. Freshley, read the post and sent more photos. I particularly like this one where Brian narrated the photo…..

I worry that kids are not learning to make things and not experiencing the thrill of having put their sweat and time into something creative.

As quilters, we need to take this to heart and be willing to teach young people about the joys of our wonderful craft!!

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When my kids were in Elementary School, they had terrific teachers who were interested in providing new experiences to their students. As I volunteered in their classrooms, I naturally talked about my interest in quilting and several teachers asked me to talk to the kids.

This was one of my favorite things to do, and over the years I spoke to countless numbers of classes.

I would start by talking about the different shapes of fabric pieces….squares, triangles, rectangles, etc., and then start putting those shapes together to form blocks. The kids always enjoyed trying to guess what the blocks were called….or why they were called that!!

Then we would start looking at quilts (mostly traditional quilts made by my Mom), searching for the blocks and shapes that we had previously discussed.

I would end the talk by reading “Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt”…..

It is such a sweet book about two rival quilting guilds….the women’s group and the men’s group.

They are both making quilts for the county fair competition, each wanting to beat the other.

The men are making a Flying Geese quilt….

…and the women are making a sailboat quilt….

But, as life would have it, a strong wind blows up while they are taking the quilts to the fair, and both quilts are dumped into a mud puddle.

Instead of seeing the destruction, they each notice how wonderful the other group’s quilt is. They decided to take the best bits from each quilt and make one quilt out of them, calling it “Flying Sailboats”!!

And, of course, the quilt WINS!!!

Each page has a quilt block border around it and all of the illustrations are well done.

If you want to start teaching kids about quilting, I highly recommend it!!

In a few of my kid’s classes, I helped them make a classroom quilt….come back tomorrow, and I will share some of those quilts with you!

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It has been really nice to have some time at home this summer and I have been able to spend time in my studio with various friends and family.  Claire fits into the “friend” category!!

Claire is 9 years old and goes to my church.  She and I were talking a few months back about hobbies and she expressed an interest in making a quilt.  I asked her what her favorite colors were and she responded that she didn’t have favorite colors but that she loved horses.

I hopped onto Fabric.com and came up with this fun panel to base the quilt on……

When Claire arrived we picked some fabrics and she took off with the sewing…..

At first we had some problems with the horse fabric crawling because it was so soft but a quick shot of Spray starch fixed that problem…..

My machine proved to be very easy to set up for her…… we turned the speed down to “Turtle” so that it didn’t run away with her and between the 1/4 inch foot and a magnetic fabric stop, she was able to keep a very even 1/4 inch seam……

Claire particularly enjoyed seeing how long of a chain she could make……

This is where we were at the end of the first day…..

Day two started with sewing the blocks together, adding two borders and then came the hard task of picking fabric for the backing…..

When she left after day two, it was basted and ready for quilting…..

Before she arrived for day 3, I put the binding on and did a bit of quilting, just to make sure that we got it finished.  While I was getting things set up for her she had a fun time creating “Pin Cushion Woman”……I particularly love the hair bow!!

The quilt was soon finished……

….and used for a silly picture…..

I really had a wonderful time working with Claire and found that she has a quick wit, is encouraging, fun and extremely creative.  I cant wait to spend more time with her in  the future and to see what other creative ventures she finds in her life!!!

 

Thanks Claire for letting me share in your project!!!