Teacher Appreciation Gift: Kids Art Quilt

I can't believe it is that time of the year again - my two smallest bunnies have finished their year at nursery school and it was time to think about teacher appreciation gifts again. (On a small Mummy note I am struggling with how fast these little people grow up and how I long to have more - oh dear husband of mine are you reading this???)

I have wanted to make a little art gallery quilt for a longtime now and this was the perfect opportunity. (I find giving gifts is a great way to try out a new idea!) Each child's parent in the class gave me their favorite piece of art work - we have had some really great/fun art work come home this year.

I scanned each piece of art work and enlarged them so they were all of a similar size. I printed the artwork onto a yard of fabric using Spoonflower. I added a simple 'frame' to each picture as well as the artists name.

  
I wanted the background fabric to look like wallpaper as though the art was hanging on a wall. I tried very hard to get the seam to match perfectly so you can't see the seam. Can you see the seam? (and yes I was quietly proud of this moment in my sewing history.)

Part of what I love most about these gifts is the labels. I took the class photo and made it into a label. I use printable paper and our home printer to make the labels - you heat set the ink with an iron (it does fade a little with washing) but it does the job well. 

I did some very simple quilting on the quilt. Double loop the loops on the background and a little bit of quilting on the art.  You can see the detail of the quilting much clearer from the back.

Another year has dashed past. Thank you to all the teachers out there that bring joy, laughter and learning to our little bunnies on a daily basis.

 

If you remember for the past two years we have made hand print pillows that were mighty cute too - you can check those out here Teacher Appreciation Hand Print Pillows (2014) & Teacher Appreciation Hand Print Pillows (2013).

I have another teacher appreciation quilt in the works - its a really great quilt so stay tuned I will be able to share that with you soon too. 

Teacher Appreciation Gift: Hand Print Pillows

For my eldest bunny - we made her class teacher & classroom assistant hand print cushions.

You may remember that I made these before for Grandma on Mother's Day.

Each child in the class made his or her hand print using fabric paint.

I quilted the front of each cushion (experimenting with free motioning quilting - one continuous line in a heart pattern - not perfect ...

... way harder than it looks) and added some embellishments (felt flower pot & a bow.)

I wanted the pillows to be very fun and happy so this time I made a ruffle trim. (I have a new ruffler foot - which I would much recommend for endless hours of fun easy ruffles.)

I made labels for the back of the cushions so the teacher can identify who made each hand print. I favor a pillowcase closure for cushions - easy and prettier than a messy zipper (I am scared of zips!)

 

I hope you all have a wonderful summer holiday. I can't wait not to have to load all the kids in the car (twice) every morning for the school run and if you are wondering what to do with your little people this summer check out Fun at Home with Kids, Growing a Jeweled Rose and the Artful Parent for endless ideas for fun and inventive play.

Teacher Appreciation Gift: Home Made Play Silks

My girls go to a really sweet preschool. Next year they will be moving schools - so I wanted to thank their teachers for giving them such a lovely and happy experience. I asked their movement and music teacher if there was anything she would like for her classroom and what do you know - she wanted some colored silks for the movement classes!

We decided 30" square silks would be the best size as her classes range from just under 2's to 4+.

Again I used food colors to ensure the silks were super kid friendly. I used the McCormick Assorted Food & Egg Dye and the McCormick Neon Food & Egg Dyes.

I have posted a previous post about kid friendly dyeing techniques here. But to recap -  

- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture. (I'm in a debate about whether soaking the silks before hand is really necessary - if I do this again I will try using dry silks.)
- Mixture: 1/2 bottle of 0.25oz food coloring with 16 ounces of hot tap water + 6 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the dye mixture.
- Leave it there and stir occasionally - you will see when the dye has been absorbed as the liquid will become a lot clearer - approx 20 mins - although we did leave ours hanging around most of the afternoon.

- Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.

Amazingly bright colors. My only disappointment was that the neon 'pink' and the assorted 'red' are practically the same hue.

TIP: If your silk ends up looking like this first try (I rushed it) do not panic - just make another mixture of dye, water & vinegar and resoak the silk.

You can see how bright the green came out (far left) on the second soak.

Teacher Appreciation Gift: Quilt from Kids Clothes

My daughter finishes kindergarten this summer. Next year she starts 1st grade. Proper school! How can she be so grown up??

We collected one piece of clothing from each child from the class. After deconstructing the clothes and ironing anything that needed to be onto stablizer. I then slashed & sewed and slashed and sewed (3 times I think) before cutting the 'splats' into squares. The t-shirts were making me smile before I began sewing the squares together - some of them were really fun.

I chose a combination of spirals, pebbles and square greek keys for the top. This simple combination kept me deliriously happy through out the quilting process. 

I made two pillows with the left over squares for the assistant teachers in the class. I don't think they are as successful as the quilt but they are bright, jolly & heartfelt none the less!

This is one quilt I would really rather keep than give away!

 

The quilt was bound with one blue t-shirt from the clothes supplied to me and I made the cutest little label too (from their class silly photo - because I like a bit of silly!) That's my beautiful beautiful little girl in pink in the front!

Parents and teacher seemed happy with the finished product!

Wishing you all a wonderful, safe and sunny summer holidays with your family.

Teachers Appreciation Gifts: Hand Print Pillows

I can not believe that the end of school is nearly here again and I found myself yearning to make me all time favorite project - hand print pillows. You might remember that we made them first for Mother's Day and for teacher appreciation gifts last year. 

This year we had 3 pillows to make. A total of 21 children aged from 18months to 5 years popped around at one time or another to let me paint their hands and print them on fabric. With the age of the kids you are working with you just have to embrace the imperfections and go with it. This year I used Jacquard Fabric Paints & painted the leaves & stems onto the pillows.



I wanted to do some different designs this year so we have a flower bed of flowers ....

.... with a plant label, quilted in swirls and brown yarn for the earth.

We have a bouquet ....

... with gift tag ...

 

... quilted in pebbles & feather swirls.

And the old classic of flowers in a vase ....

... with gift tag ...

.... and quilted in pebbles, swirls & waves.

 

AND  I am very proud to share this shot with you - another school year over and I am one proud proud Mummy. I love this project - perhaps we will do it again next year!

Two-tone Playsiks

Our coffee filter butterfly tree has gotten many a compliment (we sadly just took it down to make our Halloween tree.) If you remember we made many of our beautiful butterflies by simply dipping and hanging our coffee filters in liquid watercolors. I know I must seem mildly obsessed by dying silks but it did make me wonder if we could make play silks this way. Just dip the silk in two pots and let it sit there and soak up the colors.

In each container is filled with approx 16oz of hot water, 6oz of vinegar & a good squirt or more of food coloring. You can read more about dying play silks with kid friendly dyes here, here & here.

We left the silks to soak for 30mins or so.

The results were really quite pretty - I gave into the imperfections in the color and enjoyed the design that the process resulted in. 

 

Here is Bunny #1 running around the garden pretending to be a butterfly. 

They also make really pretty neck scarfs.

Other dyeing fun we have had:
Tissue Dyed Silk Pillows
Two Tone Play Silks
Teacher Appreciation Gift: Home Made Play Silks
Easy Silk Scarf Dyeing with Tissue Paper
Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own Play Silks

Learning to Free Motion Quilt

 Image from TerifiCreations (Teri Lucas)

I am currently taking some free motion quilting lessons with Teri Lucas. Teri is lovely and she is cheering me on.

Despite the projects I seem to take on these days - I have not been free motion quilting for very long.  Here is my complete history of free motion quilting. And Teri - I'm scared you might be reading this - I really haven't quilted very much at all!

I took my first lesson in 2007 which in truth freaked me out and I didn't go back to it before stippling a small makeup case in 2009.

At the time I was extremely pleased with myself - but I have to admit I had trouble posting this picture at all!

I then began popping out babies and concentrate largely on my knitting skills (I just love to knit!) Any quilts I made I just opted to sew in the ditch or tie. I was still very scared of free motion quilting.

Then in 2012 (yes it took me 3 years to try this again) I took a leap of faith and made a playmat for a cousin and quilted it by stippling.

 

Then later in 2012 I made a memory quilt for a 90th birthday celebration. This was a monster sized quilt - I must have been crazy to take it on.

In these 3 widely spaced projects I could already see a vast improvement in my stippling. This year I have completed the following projects.

Valentine Quilt with quilted swirls.

Mother's Day Pillows with quilted swirls & Teacher Appreciation Pillows with quilted echoed hearts.

Fallen Soldier Quilt - stippled.

and our first in a series of Kid Painted Quilts quilted with swirly flowers.

That's it. Not too much experience really. And this was a good post for me to write as it reminds me that I have come a long way with not so much experience. So tomorrow when I sit down to fight with an amazing project I am honored to be working .... I will remind myself. I am getting better - but it takes practice. Hours and Hours of practice .... and I am on a total mission to conquer this free motion quilting!

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Please do not forget about the charity I Spy quilt - we are still looking for scrap fabric donations.