Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2010

I am so glad that I saw this happening again! I have been very absent from blogging this year. Thank you, Amy, for hosting the great Blogger's Quilt Festival again! I love seeing everyone elses amazing work. It is always inspiring.

This quilt started as a small idea, two teachers retiring and somehow involving all of the students. I donated the time and material to make this quilt (and the next) and the PTO helped to cover the cost of a long-arm quilter to do the hard part! I had a short time frame, I think it was about a month.

Orginally I thought I would have each student do a 6" block but that was simply too daunting to prepare and sew with the time I had given myself. I chose a garden theme because it lends itself well to childrens creativity and both like to garden. I love this quilt because of it's long garden rows spaced by a great batik grass. Then surrounded by water/sky.

The garden spaces are made up of two classes each and the last row with the thank you block. It was great to watch the children put something in the garden and show their love for these teachers. It was great to work with the fabric pastels. I've used them on a couple of projects since then.

This was a great exercise for me to give over the creative license to the kids and even more to hand over the quilts to be quilted by someone else. My friend did a fantastic job and worked fast to help me meet the deadline. I could see myself getting carried away with the quilting and that would have taken away from the beautiful art.

Wrapping up the quilts I used the extra from the backing (there was a lot!) and made cases for them. We hung the quilts up at school for a couple of days for the kids and teachers to see the final project. They loved how it all came together and so did the recipients. Lots of love shared and tears shed.