Little Hands

 

Today I’m starting work on my third quilt. It’s for a silent auction at my kids’ school’s annual fundraiser. Each class produces a piece of art for the auction and the variety is amazing. Last year I helped the first graders make a collage of San Diego, which I framed. The kids did an amazing job. This year we are making a quilt and I am going to incorporate their hand prints into the design.

Since I don’t know whether this quilt will go home and rest on a boy’s bed or a girl’s bed (or a grown up’s bed) I want to make it something that works for both genders. I hope it comes across that way. The school colors are blue and red and I decided to go with that color scheme, along with accents of white and possibly black (and maybe tiny hints of other colors). This quilt will have a patriotic feel, absolutely. I guess that anything that is red, white and blue feels patriotic. That’s fine by me because I love America and making something with a patriotic look suits me.

 

I hope this becomes something that a family uses and enjoys for generations. Possessions aren’t passed down to the next generation the way they once were in times past. But I hope that this quilt might be used for decades…I love pieces of art that are functional as well as beautiful.

I’m really excited! Just this morning I picked out the fabric and that alone was invigorating. If you are a creative person, just browsing through supplies gets your imagination excited. I can envision what the quilt will look like—to an extent. But part of my (non) method is to do some planning ahead of time but also to go in new directions mid-project, depending on what kind of inspiration strikes on any given day. This means that when the quilt is finished I get a surprise, too, even though I’m the one creating it.

So for the second time in two days, I’m sharing a sneak peak at something before it’s finished. This is unheard of. Who is this new me?!

Here are the fabrics I chose today:

Watch for an update next week, after I’ve finished the quilt. I don’t know if I’ll post any blogs before then—I think I’ll be up to my eyeballs in fabric! But it’s for a good cause and I have fun working with the kiddos. (Just a little back story here: I was going to give myself a quasi-break this year. I did not volunteer for the art project when they had the sign-up sheets out on the very first day of school. But one day in October the room mom ran up to me and asked if I could do it. Being me, I agreed to, even though part of me was hoping not to add new stuff to my plate. But no one else had signed up, and apparently I’m pretty malleable when it comes to causes that need help. And really, I do love a creative project…)

Well, I’m off now. Tomorrow morning I visit the classroom to work with the kids on this quilt. Before then I need to cut some squares of fabric and develop some fool-proof (ha ha) steps the kids can follow. (I’m going to cut extras because 8-year-olds sometimes feel they’ve messed up and want to start fresh, even if you reassure them that their first attempt rocked.)   

Anybody else working on a cool project? (With or without second-graders.) Let me know…