Friday, May 17, 2013

Kindergarten Book Quilts (Bloggers Quilt Festival Entry)

In the reading program at my children's school, the kids learn about a different letter each week, and during Q week, they read some stories about quilts.  I offered to help the class make a quilt of their own.  I gave the teacher a couple options that I thought would be easy quilts to put together that would have the kids involved in some way. 

I'm using this as my second entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side in the Group/Bee division.
Title:Kindergarten Book Quilts
Made by: Me (Polly Carlson)
Size: Approx 30"x30"
Division: Group/Bee Quilt
Techniques: Home Machine Quilting



She chose the book quilt option.

I figured as long as we were making one for the teacher to keep in the classroom, we'd also make a duplicate quilt for the elementary school librarian.  She's a wonderful librarian and has been especially nice to my bookworm kids.



The second one went together super fast.
I've been wanting to make a book quilt for a year or so.  Then when Melissa at Happy Quilting did a tutorial just in time.  Since I was using scraps I didn't follow hers exactly.  Most of my scraps were already cut at 2 1/2 inches wide, but some where narrower and I made some wider on purpose because I wanted a little variation.

The teacher had the kids choose their favorite books ahead of time and gave me a list.  I brought in a box of scraps and each child got to choose the fabric for "their" book.  The original plan had been to put the titles on the front of the quilt, but once they were sewn together, I thought that would just be too distracting to do the way I'd planned.  We encouraged a few kids to switch books because about 6 or 7 kids chose the same book (one the teacher had read to them the week before), so I also brought some books from home that were age appropriate and I had especially fun fabric to go with (The Big Red Barn, Fancy Nancy, Five Little Monkeys, etc.)

Once each child had chosen their fabric, they sat at the table while I sewed the white end(s) onto the book and lined it up with the others...about 2 minutes.  The balance of colors and prints isn't quite what I would have chosen doing it myself, but that wasn't what was important for this one.I didn't sew all the books together until I got home, so I could make the blocks approximately the same size.  I added a small strip of white above the books because I wanted their to be a little head room between the books and the shelf.

I quilted the quilts using my sewing machine and quilting in-the-ditch to outline each book.  Once the quilts were finished, I wrote the name of each favorite book on the back.  Then I took the quilts back to my son's classroom and had each child write their name next to their title.

The kids and the teachers were super happy with them.

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12 comments:

  1. This is absolutely adorable and such a great way to expose the kids to both their literacy project and the art of handiwork. What a gift of time, thought, and dedication!

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  2. I love this. Thank you for sharing a literacy-themed quilt!

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  3. Really wonderful! I LOVE the signed backs. I'm sure they will both be treasured.

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  4. Amazing project! I love the mixing of the books with the quilt and I can see so many other lessons that that be brought into a classroom that involve quilting. I especially love the pictures of the students with the quilts, the kids make me laugh.

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  5. Love it! I think it's a great idea for a techer's gift. Thanks! and Congrats!

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  6. Oh, how beautiful!! What a wonderful teacher's gift!!

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  7. Okay, that's just too cute! As a teacher, I think that's completely wonderful.

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  8. What a super cute idea! The quilts are just adorable!

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  9. What an awesome gift to both the teacher and the librarian! I love this idea so much.

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  10. What wonderful gift ideas for the teacher and the librarian. Those are sure to be treasured. I love how you got the kids involved.

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  11. this is a great idea, hope itsok to copy for the llibrary at my school!

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  12. Love it! Perhaps each child could take a personal picture with the quilt for his/her own memory book.

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