Saturday, June 4, 2011

Hand Print Animals Quilt

A while back Firecracker's kindergarten class was studying the letter Q and with it their Q-chant was about "Quails on a quilt..." so I offered to her teacher to help the class make a quilt.  It kind of evolved into making a quilt to support the upcoming bike-a-thon our community is having to raise money for Histiocytosis research.  (You might remember my earlier post about Jackson here.  It's not too late if you want to donate something and get a little free advertising for your blog.)

Jackson's little brother is in Firecracker's kindergarten class, so we thought having the kids make a quilt that could be donated to a newly diagnosed histiocytosis patient would be a good way to support the effort and help the kindergarteners feel like they were able to help in a small way.  This blanket will be going to a one-year-old boy here in Washington.



To make the hand print animals, I did a google image search to find options.  I chose about 6 options and printed them off on a paper as examples.  The ones on the list were a fish, spider, octopus, peacock, turkey, and giraffe.  I'm not sure how a butterfly got left off the list, but I'm sure kids would have loved to choose that too.  (That blue peacock is one of my favorites and the pink fish is Firecracker's hand.)




Several kids wanted to branch out a bit further and requested a cat or dog.  This kid especially wanted his dog to look like his dog from home, and hence the black spots.

And the sweetest one was that Jackson's little brother really wanted to make a teddy bear in a "baby" color to make the little boy we're giving this to happy.

I know schools out for a lot of people now (although we still have a few days left), but this could make a great service project for summer camp.

Here's how we managed it with 6 year olds.

  • We used 9 inch muslin squares, and I cut these out ahead of time.

  • I called the kids back two at a time.  One child would choose their animal and color of paint while I was stamping the other child's hand.  This seemed to give them plenty of time to be ready for their turn to stamp.
  • We used regular acrylic paint which worked fine, although fabric paint would probably work even better.
  • I helped them position their hand depending on which design they chose.
  • After stamping their hands, I wiped as much off with a paper towel as I could and then sent them over to wash really well with soap and water.  As far as I know, none of them got any on their clothes.
  • Once the squares were dry, I added the details with my fabric pens at home.  
  • Then I sewed the quilt together.  The blue strips are 2 1/2 inches by 9 inches and came from a cotton thrifted queen sized sheet.  The yellow squares were 2 1/2 inches on each side and came from my stash.  I was on my way to the fabric store for the batting last weekend, when I pulled over to a garage sale where I found the batting for $1.  Awesome.  It went together really quickly.  For the backing I used more of the sheet that I'd cut the strips from.  
  • I machine quilted it and made a binding using bias tape from Dana's tutorial on MADE.  I think the whole quilt cost somewhere between $6-10 to make since I was able to get everything so cheap.
  • Then after it was all sewed together, I washed it to make all that paint softer.  

I sent the quilt off with Firecracker to school today, and she said the class loved seeing it and matching their hand prints up.

Which one is your favorite?

17 comments:

  1. I love all of them...but that giraffe is just dang cute.

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  2. I made a quilt like this with my kindergarten class my first year as a teacher. I loved it and still have it. There are two books full of Handprint Quilt Ideas. Some are pretty elaborate, but so adorable!

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  3. This is simply fabulous!
    I can't believe how many creatuires you made from hands!

    I would love if you would link it up to our Monday Playdate at: http://beneaththerowantree.blogspot.com/2011/06/playdate-link-party-everyone-welcome.html

    Cheers,
    Lori
    come & Play :: Playdate
    www.beneaththerowantree.com

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  4. I love the turkey! It's so sweet and colorful. What a great project.

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  5. I love it. I still haven't gotten into quilting, but one of these days I will have a fabulous quilt to display!

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  6. This is so awesome. I just made 2 shirts with my daughter on my blog with hand print shapes too. We did american flag and a crab. I love these Ideas. SO CUTE.

    Would love if you would stop by and link up your creative project with us at Nothing But Country. Would love to share this project with our readers too.

    Happy Creating. :) Thanks for sharing your project.

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  7. This is so freakin' cute. I can't wait till my little dood is into arts and craps.

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  8. I love this so much! I am a kindergarten teacher, and this is right up my alley! :-)
    I'm going to feature it on my Fun-day Friday post this week, if you don't mind!?
    Thanks!
    ~Bec
    www.littlelucylu.com

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  9. Oh my goodness, this is fantastic! I love handprint projects and this one of the most impressive I've ever seen!!! Will be posting a link on my FB fan page, thanks for sharing on A Crafty Soiree.

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  10. This is really beautiful! I've seen handprint calendars, but a quilt takes handprint art to a whole new level! :)

    Andrea
    www.addicted2tutes.blogspot.com

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  11. So cool! The critters make this even more kid friendly - they must be super proud of this!

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  12. My goodness, this is AWESOME! I think the peacock is my favorite, too -- you did a great job adding the details! Such a fun fundraiser idea, too.

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  13. I love this. I featured it on my blog today. Love it! http://mamabeefromthehive.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-just-found-this-sweet-idea-this.html

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  14. We are making this for my daughter school in september. What fabric pens do you like for the features? I'm hoping ours comes together quickly too!

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  15. Ok, I finished! LOVE IT. Thanks so much for the idea! http://www.mamabeefromthehive.blogspot.com/

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  16. oops, Here's the right link: http://mamabeefromthehive.blogspot.com/2011/09/quilt-is-done-now-i-can-watch-glee.html

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