The Quilts of The Great American Teach-In

Yesterday I finished up the second quilt for the second teacher in Jessica's class.  Both panels were printed by Spoonflower.  The first was my radial gradient attempt.  That didn't work out so well and the gradient was lost in a sea of dark navy and purple.  They agreed to reprint it with a solid background for me which while I was terribly disappointed I was grateful to them.  The first was such a mess I was certain I couldn't use it, but the waste not want no person in me decided I should try to salvage the first for the teacher's aid.  That way no matter what happened to the second panel in shipping at least I would have one quilt as I promised the children.

I appliqued a pieced block of the school right over the owl.  It took rather a lot of time to get it just right, including but not limited to the hand stitched playground you see above, so this has a children's novelty backing.

The second one arrived just before I could affix the binding on the first, sadly I was rather burned out at that point so all I could think was UGH more work!  The solid background was darker than I thought it would be.  I had been shooting for a light blueish teal and ended up with more of a primary blue.  I'm so glad I kept it light so the owl would be clear.  I hand quilted around the outlines of the owl which gives him a bit of a fuzzy look.

As I only had one yard of the flannel I'd hoped to use as backing I went ahead and did a diamond on the back.  While neither of the quilts from Spoonflower were what I was looking for the children's crayon art work came out beautifully and I love that it's completely washable.  If I find myself making another quilt of this type I will certainly refer Spoonflower.  Multi color gradients could print quite nicely but a range of a single color I would not recommend.  The owl's eyes are a brown black radial gradient and those turned out just fine.

I'm all done shopping and nearly finished wrapping, and the cold front has just made it's way here, so I'm ready to settle in with a cup of hot coco.  From our home to yours, we wish you a joyous and peaceful holiday.

Spoonflower Order Placed

Yesterday I sent off my first order for Spoonflower, a custom fabric manufacturer.  Perhaps some of you may remember I was making the quilt from the children's artwork, and I decided to have it custom printed on fabric?

Well let me start by saying the world of custom fabric is amazing in how freeing it is.  Sashing?  It can be random, tilted, multicolored, you dream it you can have it!  Once I got past the tracks of my own metal blocks to realize making your own fabric is like flying.  Okay, maybe walking instead of being stuck on a train.

The owl contained hereon is made up of all the children's names, I transformed the lines I drew of the owl to make them that way.  ALL copyrights for original artwork belong exclusively to the children, but that owl is mine.  Don't you just love him?  I kicked down the resolution as well as blacking out the children's names for privacy but you can still see the overall appearance.

Turn around time is about 10 days so I'll be posting later on how everything printed out.