New Orleans House Project

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Throwback Thursday: School Days

It's Back-to-School time here in the US and I'm feeling nostalgic about my kids' school days.  When we lived in Pensacola, my boys attended an elementary school that had a very open-door policy toward parents.  I logged many hours volunteering in the boys' classrooms and with other activities around the school.  I was lucky enough to spend more time with their teachers than just parent-teacher conferences and Parent's Lunch Day!

I made a number of quilts as teacher gifts, but I only have photographs of two of them, both from the 1995 school year.  Hard to believe that was 20 years ago!

This quilt was for my youngest son's kindergarten teacher.  I made two large "stamp pads" using acrylic paint, wet sponges and disposable plastic plates.  The kids in the class took turns stamping their handprints onto pre-cut squares of white 100% cotton fabric.  We washed their stamping hand off and then had them write their name on their block.  The teacher did a block, too - it's in the center of the quilt.  I found a great novelty print fabric featuring kids (click on the picture for a closer view) for the sashing and and borders.  The quilt is tied with red and blue embroidery thread.  

I made a similar quilt for my oldest son's second grade teacher.  Same pre-cut 100% cotton squares, but this time I had the kids draw a self-portrait using fabric crayons.  I took the squares home and ironed them to set the pictures.  The sashing and borders were made from a neon-print of sea creatures.  This one is tied with black embroidery thread.

When we moved to New Orleans I lost touch with most of the folks I knew from those school days, and I don't know what happened to the quilts.  My kids' new school was not quite so parent-friendly and I never made another teacher quilt.  That's OK, my boys were getting older and probably would have been embarrassed to have their mom making quilts for the teachers or the school!