Teacher Appreciation

...& the blog I forgot to post...


Last week was teacher appreciation at my son's school.

 I made these

 ('cause in case you don't remember, there's a moratorium on sending in home-baked treats...)

Now, there was a teacher who'd moved away in the middle

of the year. Two of our boys 

had him for percussion

& band the past 5.5 years; but the rest of our family loved him & his tribe, too. (A few years ago I made a quilt for his baby girl & blogged about it here.)

 
Well, baby girl now has a baby brother, & of course we had to make a quilt for him! Last fall I found out the nursery was to have a woodland theme, so I bought a set of appliquéd forest animals from Bunnycup Embroidery.

Next came the arduous task of finding the perfect backing fabric. None of my local shops carried something that would coordinate with the embroideries; but a shop on Etsy had some yardage I loved!

Then I heard the baby would be a "he" so I had to make sure my fabrics for the appliqués were boyish.

I had plenty of help from Duncan, who has lots of experience with quilts...

I quilted by using a double needle & "stitch-in-the-ditch" -- I like the way it turned out, for the most part.

Next big decision was what to bind with & my friend Cindy gave me the best advice, "Orange Minkee" she said.

Perfecto!

Then all that was left was to stick it in the mail...

…some recent “makes”

Life whizzes by at lightning speed sometimes. I’ve been wanting to show some projects, but never really have time to sit down & write a blog post…

So, I’m just going to throw a bunch of pictures out here:

 

Quilts made for my friend’s grandtwins born the first of the year.

 

A headband andladybug tutu for a newborn(with hand-sewn yo-yo “spots”)

 

A tray for vintage letterpress blocks (plus a few “faux” blocks)

 

Some magnetic owl Post-it® note holders for teacher appreciation week

 

Assisted in applying htv to a canvas for a Mother’s Day gift

 

Etched a cookie jar

 

Helped with a GCU grad cap

 

A few graduation money holders

I shamelessly copied Sara @spinningwheelantiques #windchimes today! #secretgarden #addictedtocobaltglass #musictomyears

A video posted by mshing (@4mshing) on Jun 17, 2016 at 3:09pm PDT

And a windchime for my garden

 

 

 

Baby girl pennant quilt

Teachers are underpaid & under-appreciated. Teachers’ spouses, even more so…  We learned at last spring’s concert that the boys’ band director & his wife were due to have a baby girl join their coupledom this month. I decided I wanted to make a quilt for her.

I had seen some darling pennant “modern” quilts on a few of my favorite blogs. I drew up a design of my own:I thought I would be able to find a fat quarter bundle with the pink colors I envisioned… NOT! I ended up having to locate 8 fabrics and had them cut 1/4 yard of each.I embroidered the letters of her name on the little flags, then backed them with a lightweight fabric. (…was still trying to decided if I wanted lace around each one, as I had indicated in my plan…)I pressed the “loop” into my narrow seam-binding & tried my layout. Oooooops! -- The size of the pennants made for a bit of a bigger quilt than I’d expected…The tops needed to be bastedand then pinned to the bias strip.Had to check the layout again & make sure the birdies I decided to add looked O.K.I made the “quilt sandwich” and stitched on the seam binding and around each pennant. Next came the appliqué-ing of the darling blue birds. (These were from Embroidery Garden machine embroidery designs.)Now, I’ve never said these words before, so please excuse me if I linger over them -- Then I took it over to my quilter. Actually, I begged my friend Cindy to quilt some clouds for me. I didn’t even offer her a quilting design to follow! She had some beautiful projects of her own that she was working on completing, but she squeezed my little job in anyhow.Doesn’t the back look cute, too?After I straightened the quilt, I determined that the corners would be kinda cute rounded (to balance the angular pennants & complement the loop in the “rope” somewhat…)

I was soooooooo excited to be able to utilize my Clover Wonder Clips that I’d purchased from HL with a coupon!When I was complaining on social media about how much I hate finishing a quilt; Friend Cindy said to bring it over ‘cause she loves binding! (I restrained myself from taking her up on it…)Never fails! (graphic violence alert! ) If I’m hand-stitching a light-colored fabric, I will accidently get a tiny poke on a finger and will have one drop of blood…(I couldn’t even tell where on my hand the needle got me!) Fortunately it did not leave a spot after sponging with antibacterial hand soap…So… I guess I’ll just end this post with a couple of my favorite shots of the finished quilt…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Appreciation

I love my boy's teachers! This is his 6th year there, and with perhaps one exception, we've had great teachers across all the subject areas. Even if I had an unlimited budget (which we all know I do not) there is nothing I could buy or make that would convey how much we appreciate all that's been invested into his life.

One of his teachers this year is a wonderful woman I had the privilege of teaching with (at a different school) four years before he was born; and one of his teachers is a little girl young woman I had as a student many years ago... Our son has grown so much intellectually & spiritually under the tutelage of these men & women who give beyond the hours spent in the classroom.

I digress... The purpose of this post is to show what I created to express a tiny bit of our gratitude to his instructors.

First, I did let the Scrabble board do my talking for me. I personalized one of these for each teacher. Had to get "creative" with my words, because I used only one set of letters. (I could've cheated with the not-as-vintage board & letters, but I figured since it was for school, my dishonesty might be discovered...)

Then I figured embroidering free-standing lace bookmarks would be within my budget ($0!) Problem was, while I found parts of some I liked, I didn't see anything as a whole that would fit the bill. Sooooo... enter my favorite editing program Embird! I "frankenstein-ed" what I wanted.

I found my cross at Sadia's. I love the openness of this "Grace" lace! (I plan on completing my collection, soon.)

The tassel & "chain" is part of a freebie I cannibalized from Criswell. I'm amazed at how realistic it is after the WSS is rinsed out.

Here's a pictorial tutorial illustrating (for those who care) my process:

1st of seven

"Great is my frugalness!" I embroidered 3 per sheet of WSS!

cut out & ready for rinsing

only 4 more to go...

starting on the chain/tassel

ta da!

despite great frugalness, could only get 2 of these per sheet

trimmed & ready to rinse

final rinse with fabric softener to make them soft

after a couple hours they're ready to dry

dries so nice & soft!

ready for the remaining stray threads to be trimmed

back (left side) showing black bobbin

(this shows bobbin contrast better...)

& ready for giving!

Thus ends another project.