Kids Art Quilt: Bess Beetle

There are few things I am more passionate about than turning clothes into quilts - but making quilts from kids art work is probably up there too. This was a quilt that I took some 8 days to longarm - that is about 64 hours of non stop quilting - which for a good sized twin sized quilt is a pretty decent amount. This quilt has some fun surprises in it too. The original drawing of Bess Beetle can be seen here. 

To begin with I began Googling 'beetles' to get some ideas. Beetle tracks popped up - and I liked that idea. So there are beetle tracks all over the quilt. I made my beetle tracks with a round foam brush and black fabric paint. Once the paint was dry & heat set with a hot iron it was time to load the quilt onto Freddie and begin quilting around those beetle tracks.

Have you spotted the quilting design yet? It is a mix and match leaf pattern. All the leaves are the same shape.

I made my own template out of a cereal packet to quickly mark the outlines & then each leaf line is heavily quilted - more than a micro stipple - and each leaf has its own design.

Bess herself was made from a panel I created and ordered through Spoonflower.  (Spoonflower Tip: To create an image the same size as the width of the fabric your picture needs to measure 6300 pixels x 5400 pixels.) Here is Bess ....

Here is what the whole quilt looks like.

 And of course you need to see the back. 

 And that isn't it.

What is this? A little bag? What could be in it?

Well when Bess was with us she had some babies. (Again with the help of Spoonflower.) Fifteen babies to be exact.

And on the back of each baby is a piece of Velcro. 

And each baby attaches to various places on the quilt. (The black beetle tracks hide the Velcro spots perfectly.) I wonder if S will be able to find where they live!

I used a wool batting AND a cotton batting for this quilt so the texture is divine. 

And here is the quilt - all folded up and concealed in its matching Bess Beetle pillowcase.  Did I forget to mention I made a matching pillowcase too? I used a very old pillowcase tutorial of mine - and I was pleased that it all still made sense!

I really hope that Asia & S love their beetle quilt as much as I loved making it.

WIP: Kids Art Quilt: Turning Your Kids Paintings into Unique Fabric

Here is my 5 year old's first fabric line. We couldn't be more excited!!



The fabric is printed using Spoonflower.

Here is the original painting - all the fabrics are from this one painting. 

I scanned the painting and imported it into iPhoto. I changed the tint, contrast etc to make a pink & blue version of the painting. Then I uploaded the 3 different files to Spoonflower. 

You can see here how changing the repeat of the fabric and the design size can change the look of the fabric. 

The first thing I did when the fabric arrived was to wash it. It was a tad stiff from the printing process. I washed the fabric in a little synthrapol on a standard warm wash - I also added a little fabric softener. This certainly helped to soften the cotton quite a lot. I'm looking forward to sewing with it - but at the same time terrified of cutting into it!!

Spoonflower is really easy to use. I'm so excited by the potential of all the kids art projects being turned into wonderful unique fabrics. I still can't believe one painting made all these different fabrics.