 We started the quilting project in November during Random Acts of Kindness
week. A new Senior Housing development was being built next door so we decided to make a
wall hanging quilt to welcome them to the neighborhood. Luckily, our librarian is an avid
quilter so she really led us through the project. The project took a long time but it was
well worth it.Each child designed a 10x10 piece of Muslin. Their instructions were to draw a picture of something they could do with our senior neighbors. They drew the picture with regular crayola crayons. To make it easier for them to draw on fabric, a piece of wax paper was ironed to the back to make it stiffer. They had to draw the picture in the middle of the square to leave an inch around the edge of the muslin for seam allowance. After the pictures were finished I had to iron the backs of the pictures to heat set them. This makes sure the crayon is bonded to the fabric. After all the pictures were drawn the adults pinned on the sashing. We set up a sewing machine in the classroom and each child sewed the sashing around one side of their block (They loved this). The rest of the quilt was put together by adults. We had the fourth graders come down to tie up each square. The first graders did not have the dexterity. I would say that it took the adults a total of four hours to make two quilts (we have 5 first grade classes). We presented it this week and invited the local paper, who took pictures of the kids. The seniors served us cookies and juice and afterward we sang songs. Everybody really enjoyed this project. |