Head over to Whip Up to read my post about creativity and motherhood.
Banner Day Skirt
Check out my tutorial for this skirt over at the Moda Bake Shop!
Paper Bag Bird’s Nest
It’s a beautiful spring day here in Atlanta, so I thought I’d post about the paper bag bird’s nest that I made with the kids a couple of years ago for Alpha Mom. I know if I made this again with my seven-year-old, we would definitely add glitter to the glue!
Class Auction Quilt
Finished up the class auction quilt the other day. As I mentioned before, we used the glue batik technique with the kids. I didn’t get the best photo of this quilt and probably should have done more top quilting in the sashing, but wanted to be done! It looks much better lying flat than hanging as it is here. I used a natural linen and cotton blend for the framing and as you can see, the kids painted the fabric squares with shades of green and blue. It’s backed with Lizzy House’s jewels fabric in aqua, a small-scale print that worked well with the colors, while keeping the front as the main focus. Finished is the key here.
I did give the kids some images of mandalas as inspiration as the project was loosely based on an Indian theme and they practiced their drawings on paper, then transferred them to fabric. You can find a tutorial on That Artist Woman. You should note that when you have the kids paint, you’ll need to make sure you are using felt or quilt batting under the fabric so the paint doesn’t bleed through from the back.
Glue Batik
So it looks like I’m working on a school auction project again this year. Don’t know how this happens. Anyway, the kids in my daughter’s third grade class had already started with a glue batik project and I made some additional squares with them last week, as you can see above. We started with this tutorial. Thinking of putting these on a neutral linen background so that the colors would be appealing to most people, but not sure. I tried this glue batik technique a couple of years ago, and decided it would be better to limit the color palette. I do think that worked better and as you can see this time I went with blues and greens. I’d also suggest having the kids focus their designs and possibly even trace something. Although I love for kids to be creative and make their own work, when it’s auction time, you need to get something good from every kid and it’s not easy. It’s a time when art really is about the finished product and not the process, which kind of takes the fun out of it.
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on this one. They have asked me to sew the kids’ designs into a quilt, so we’ll see how it comes out.