Tree of Friendship: the Classroom Quilt

Awhile ago, I volunteered to G's teacher that I could come in and work with the children to make a quilt together. She enthusiastically agreed.

I planned out a project similar to the quilts I'd made for the preschool auction. I prepared a bunch of large green scraps by pressing some fusible web onto the wrong side, leaving the paper intact.

The kids traced their hands onto the paper side of the fabric scraps, then cut them out to make the tree's leaves, putting their name on their leaf using an indelible marker. I fused them onto the background.

I layered and basted the top, then I stitched down the fused appliqué with quilting stitches, and made a few more leaves with the stitches.

I heavily stitched the tree trunk with heavy thread, and I love the look of the stitching. Unfortunately, the heavy and close-set quilting threw the quilt waay out of square.

I tried to compensate with some stippling in the blue background, and it helped, but the quilt is neither square nor flat. The kids don't care, though, and neither do I. G tells me they cuddle under it during silent reading time in class.

On either side of the trunk, I quilted "Division 16's" "Tree of Friendship" - it blends in to the background but that's okay. I wanted a simple record of who made the quilt and why.

Check out the beautiful thank you card the children made me - they made their own quilts using paper scraps!

All in all, a very satisfying finish, and one of my Q2 FAL projects to boot!