Art+Craft:Young Hands Quilting Community

This project has been successful due to the hands of many people and the coming together of many voices and perspectives into a cohesive whole. Below are the artworks created during this project from October 2017 to May 2018.

Our two sessions of selling raffle tickets at Cameron Community Centre allowed us to share this project with our community at large. We received many compliments about the quilt and passersby relayed stories about quilting, school fundraising and crafting to us. Our Quilt Assembly on May 24 gathered all the students together to see the results of their hard work and pull the winning ticket.  In the end, from the over 700 tickets sold a Forest Grove Elementary family won Blue Waves. The Art Quilts were displayed and will be placed in their permanent home in the coming months, outside the school library.

For our final Primary student sessions we read the delightful quilt story The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco . The lineage and thrift of quilts is wonderfully demonstrated in this story. I also encouraged the students to relate the story of the Keeping Quilt to the story of our quilt Blue Waves. After our story and discussion each student created a collage quilt by gluing fabric squares, triangles and rectangles to paper. There were some beautiful designs created, and collage is a great way to introduce younger students to working with fabric layouts and design without the worry of scissors, needles and sewing.

The final teaching sessions with the Grade 3 to 7 students involve trying out hand quilting. This skill is one that takes many hours, weeks, months and years to master. While we had the raffle quilt quilted by a professional, the art quilts are being quilted by the students and myself. Above is our classroom setting for quilting. I put out quilting books, examples of stitching and then pass out small quilt sandwiches (two pieces of fabric with quilting batting between them) The students then get to practice quilting. Students worked hard to get the rhythm. Once they felt more confident they began working on sections of the art quilts. We will continue working on these panels until their big reveal at the Quilt Project Assembly on May 24, 2018.

Our Raffle quilt tickets are now on sale!  All the Students of Forest Grove Elementary voted on the pattern design and colour scheme.  The students in Grade 4-7 cut and sewed the fabric together, and Monica at Quilted Treasures in Coquitlam quilted this queen size quilt. Meet Blue Waves... Tickets have been distributed to students and are on sale now. If you would like to see the quilt in person it will be on display Saturday April 21 from 12-3 pm at Cameron Community Centre  9523 Cameron St, Burnaby, BC Outside of the Library.   We will also have tickets on sale, and be sharing the story of our project.  Get your tickets while supplies last, the draw will take place on Thursday May 24.

Our second Primary week was about the students from Kindergarten to Grade 4 seeing the art quilts laid out in their pre-quilting state. The autumn quilt was basted with thread to demonstrate how the three layers will be connected until the quilting process is complete. This was the first time that the younger students were able to see all of the 90 squares for each season pieced together. To learn and have tactile interaction with the different stages of making a quilt the students then had the chance to quilt on the sewing machine. Each student quilted a 4 x 4 inch square to take home. When we return to classes next week the Intermediate students will begin quilting the art quilts by machine and by hand. Our raffle tickets go on sale April 6th! Check back soon for the reveal of the finished Raffle Quilt and for more information about where to see the quilts and buy tickets.