Finished!!!

Well, here it is in all it's glory! The 4th grade class quilt finished last night. It will be auctioned off on March 3rd and the proceeds will benefit our elementary school.

Each child in the class made a square, as well as our teacher (his is the bottom right as we are looking at this picture). It worked out perfectly with 5 rows of 5 squares.
This is the back. The binding is the same fabric as the sashing and borders and I hand sewed it down. The quilt has a very nice weight to it.
My little sweetie's square! The opening bid for this quilt has been set at $75 - I hope someone bids on it.

There are a few errors on this quilt, but overall I think it's pretty good. As I mentioned before, this is the second quilt that I have made and I just kind of made it up as I went along. I'll let you know how it fares :o)

More finishes at Tami's and other fabulous fiber arts here.

4th grade class quilt

This quilt is moving right along. It is my second quilt - the first one was made in a class using a pattern from a book. This quilt is just a simple one that I put together on the fly.

It is pieced and now the quilting is done. I can honestly say I have done my best, but I am not all that pleased with how it looks. Overall, I think it's "O.K.", but as you can see there are quite a few wrinkles/pulls in the fabric.
Here is a closeup. I unpicked and re-sewed those areas where I thought I could do better, but left those areas where I knew I couldn't fix them.
I matched the bobbin thread to the fabric on the back, but chose a variegated thread for the front.
All that's left now is to hand sew down the binding which I started doing last night. I hope to have both quilts completed by next Tuesday so that they can hang in their respective classrooms for a few days before the auction. Wish me luck!!

See Tami's for more WIPs.

Tuesday Tallies

I am excited to be a part of "Tuesday Tallies" or "One-a-Day" as it's also called.

7 more hexies - I think maybe next week I will show a picture of the bowl they are all in - it's getting pretty full now :o)
More fish- I am getting to the end now - my next picture of this project will probably not be of fish, but of some of them sewn together. I am hoping it goes quickly!
More squares for the gingerbread bear blanket - almost enough to make the next section - I can hardly wait!!
THEN....because I have wanted to do these for a long time - I started another one-a-day. Kites to also sew into a blanket :o) These are super easy and super quick - although not quite as quick as the crochet squares for the gingerbread bear blanket.

More one-a-day goodness here!

4th Grade Class Quilt

I finally got all the squares designed by the kids. As you can see, there is a wide variety of styles and tastes.

I tried many different ways to put them together. I wanted to balance the very colorful with the less colorful - the tanks and guns with the rainbows and peace signs - the minimalist with the total coverage squares. I came up with a layout that seemed to accomplish all these things.

This is the top 5 squares sewn together. It will be the top of the quilt.

The next 5 with sashing in between the rows.

Third row. I am not sure now why I took these pictures at each row, but I really like the progression of the quilt. This is my second quilt - the first one I made in a class.

All the squares sewn together with the sashing.

At last.....with a border. I really like the dark sashing and border - I feel like it frames the students' work quite nicely.

Next is putting all the layers together, then quilting it, and finally putting on the binding. Whew!! Quite a bit left. Then there is the quilt for the first grade class :o)

Tuesday Tallies

It's Tuesday once again! This week I barely squeaked under the wire with my one-a-days. I have been working on two class quilts and that seems to be taking up quite a bit of my time.

7 more hexi puffs

7 more fish - I absolutely adore the wild yellow, orange, and green ones!

7 more mini grannies - I am almost at the point where I can sew the next section together and then attach it to the first, but that will wait for a while.

I am not sure I will make my next Tuesday Tallies - I must work on these quilts and get them ready for the auction. Only time will tell......

Lots of Tuesday Tallies over at Gingerbread Girls' place :o)

Cheetah's clothes

This weeks FO is not my own.

My sweet 6 year old son has been wanting to make clothes for "cheetah" so we decided to get out some fabric and make some. He was very adamant that he make them all by himself (but wanted me near to help). First he traced an outline around cheetah on the cloth. I let him know that he needed to give a very wide margin so that there would be room for the seams and so that cheetah could actually fit in there. He thought not so he cut out right on the lines and sewed up a shirt. I think you know where this is going......the shirt was WAY too small - he couldn't get cheetah in it. Here comes the great part. He looks up at me and says, "Is this why you rip things out so much, mom? You make mistakes?" I said, "Yes, I make mistakes on almost everything I make and have to redo at least part if not all of each project." He said, "Oh." Slight pause. "Well, let me start over." And he did.

This is the second shirt. He carefully traced around cheetah and then asked me what I thought would be the right amount of extra. We decided together and then he was off sewing.
I drew the stitching line to help him stay on track. I even asked him if he wanted to use the sewing machine. He said no - he wanted to do this all himself. He has a hard time standing and working the pedal of the sewing machine and also feeding the fabric. So hand sewing it was.

Starting to turn the shirt. I love the anticipation on his face!

Almost turned!

It worked!! Cheetah had a shirt!

Of course no self-respecting cheetah can go around with out pants so pants needed to be made.
They were whipped up in short order. I did some of the stitching on the shorts - he was getting tired and had lost a little bit of his focus by this point, but he is so proud!!

By the way, yes his favorite stuffy is indeed a jaguar. When he was one, this was his brother's favorite stuffy. Big brother gave this to little brother on little brother's first birthday. We tried to tell him is was a jaguar, but he was convinced it was a cheetah. Now, jaguar's name is "Cheetah". It's so cute :o)

Take a look at other finished objects over at Tami's.

Class Quilt WIPs

I have two new, big WIPs. Class Quilts! One for my son who is in the first grade and another for my daughter who is in the fourth grade. These will be auctioned off at our school auction to raise money.

I decided on a fairly easy juvenile quilt for the first graders. I chose four fairly bright fabrics and cut out pieces that are 10 1/2" X 10 1/2".
I chose this white fabric for the kids to design and cut squares that are 8" X 8". Each student drew a picture on a square. These are sooooo cute!! You can see some of them in the photo above. We have 23 students and so far I have 12 squares - I go back after school on Thursday and again on Friday at lunch to have the rest of the students design their squares. The quilt is 5 squares by 5 squares and we have two teachers so it works out perfectly for the teachers to each design a square as well!

Yesterday, I pieced the big colorful squares.

This shows what my idea is. Next I will sandwich the quilt top with the batting and the backing. Then I will sew the students' squares to the top as shown, through all layers, creating a semi "rag quilt". I hope it turns out cute!! I think I will use up the leftover fabric from the colorful squares for the binding. I will keep posting as things move along.

The fourth grade quilt will be a more traditional quilt. I already have 16 squares made and will go in to their class on Thursday at lunch to get the rest. This quilt will have sashing between the squares and a border.

Wish me luck!! These have to be completed before March 3rd. YIKES!!

For more WIPs, check out Tami's blog.