Art+Craft:Young Hands Quilting Community

As part of this project a video documenting the process was created.   Each stage of this process was documented on this blog as well. Scroll through the posts to learn more about each step. Contact the artist through her website at www.jenniejohnston.com

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.

This week was our first Primary week of the project. Since the older students are doing most of the sewing I have spent more time with them thus far. Primary week means that I can share our progress with the students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 and let them have some hands on time with the sewing machine as well. Our first step was to look at the finished Raffle quilt top and admire all of the hard word of the Intermediate students. (Grades 4-7) Each student then chose two 2.5 inch squares to sew together and the sewing began Each student took home their work for a keepsake

We are hard at work after our Winter Holiday break. The first three weeks of January are all about learning to use the sewing machines, constructing 120 rail fence quilt blocks and sewing those blocks into our quilt top. These blocks are for our queen size quilt which will be raffled off to raise money for the school. Some tape helps the students to keep their sewing lines straight. Three strips become two blocks which we then trim into 7.5 inch squares The iron station is very popular with the students. As we were discussing pattern choices and block layouts we moved the squares around to see all the possibilities. Along with piecing the blocks we have also begun sewing the blocks together into our quilt top.  In the end we will have 12 rows with 10 blocks in each row. We expect the raffle quilt to be finished with the piecing portion by the end of this month.