I Got The Notion to Quilt

When I started this blog I said I was going to get back into sewing but that has not happened. I absolutely love working on collages. There is something really wonderful about cutting and gluing paper. Can't explain it. While I'm still not ready to make clothes, I am going to make this quilt I cut out a year ago. I love these fabrics by Robert Kaufman. This collection is called "You Got The Notions."

Now, if you are familiar with this collection you know it is several years old. I didn't discover it until well after it had come out. Not that it matters. I don't know if people say things like "Oh, that's so last year," with quilt fabric. Well, if those people were looking in my clothes closet they would be saying "Oh, that's so ten years ago." Anyway, I totally admire people that have a gorgeous quilt made five minutes after a new line comes out. I'll just justify my behindness on the fact that I am a beginner when it comes to quilting. That said, I am still taking way too long to get this made. Here is the pattern I am working off of.

It is a free pattern you can get on the Robert Kaufman website. Of course I bought way more fabric than I need to finish this because I thought this fabric could be used for tons of other ideas I had. At the moment I can't remember any of them but that's a problem for another day.  Here is what I made so far.

This wasn't exactly the easiest thing to cut out or sew for a beginner quilter since I had a lot of fussy cutting to do and I had to learn how to miter the corners of those fussy cut pieces. (See the zipper fabric on the top squares.) Well it feels good to sit at the sewing machine again and now that I have shown you that I am working on it, I will have to keep going so I don't look like a quilting loser. 

Definition of Fussy Cut: To fussy cut is to target and cut a specific motif that's printed on fabric, rather than randomly cutting yardage as we normally do. (From About.com)

   

Easter Bulletin Board

I completed my Easter bulletin board for my classroom. I enjoy doing these projects but they take about two weeks to do. I had the idea months ago and my students really got into it. First I photographed them doing what they thought they might do if they were hatching from an egg. Then I cut out the pictures.

Then I laid the picture on top of some colored card stock I purchased at Michaels. I then traced them to get the general outline of their shirt.

Then I would cut the neckline a little bit at a time and try it on top of the photo. I'm not saying that part is easy. It takes some patience and trial and error.  Then once I was happy with the shape I used colored pencils to draw some details. I looked at the shirt they were wearing and followed that to color on the folds of the shirt. Here is an example from another student's shirt.

Sometimes I needed to cut along the arms and hands that were on top of the shirt to trace the shirt. Here I cut across the line of her bracelet to avoid cutting around her hand on her leg. Notice I also had to cut around her hair to make it lay on top of the new shirt.

Next I cut their shoes off and made a pattern from them. I drew on some laces.

 

I glued the shirt on top of the photo and then I glued the photo down on white cardstock which was framed by the same colored cardstock I used for their clothes. I almost forgot to mention, the kids colored their own egg that they hatched from and then I tried to coordinate their clothes to go with their egg.

This was a fun project and the kids enjoyed being a part of its creation.

April Collage Challenge

I must be weird! (Family need not respond) As soon as I printed the images for Mary's Collage Challenge, I immediately thought the birds should become hats on the girls' heads. Why? I don't know. Then, I actually worried that everyone would have the same idea. Why? Again, I don't know. But here is my entry as my mind saw it, weird or not.