Marsbarn Designs...

Set Phasers to Pun

A local comic book store had a Captain Picard Day show.  
One thing led to another and the desperate need to sew
pun-ish words into an art quilt filled my brain.

It's a amazing (and frightening) to find sewing/Star Trek
puns filling your brain and demanding attention.  Who 
knew they were so perfect for each other? 

Oh, click it to make it bigger and easier to read,
if you dare. 
You've been warned.

I *know* geekier than geeky, but it was very fun to make,
and it was cathartic (I haven't thought of a Star Trek
pun since.) 

Bookcase Quilt, final reveal

(You can click on the image to make it bigger.)

I'm really, really pleased with how this one turned out.
Many of the students used the names of stories they'd
written in class for their book titles, so their books
have special meaning for their teacher.  

I am also really pleased at how this quilt both captures
the spirit of this class, and is versatile enough to be
appreciated by later classes who will be taught by
Miss S.  

Here's a big Thank You to all of our teachers who capture
the attention and imagination of their students!   

Bookcase Quilt, more notes on assembly

The Bookcase Quilt was one of the smoother
classroom projects I've done.  

From classroom time, to assembly, to layout, to finishing,
it pretty much just hummed along.  I did have a bit 
of a learning curve with the addition of the titles to 
the books.  For the books where the students had written
in block letters, I cut out their letters and used thermoset
vinyl.  Easy, peasy.  In the future, I would actually
recommend big block letters to the students.

For the other titles, I tried to replicated their handwriting
as much as possible.  Finding appropriate ink was
a bit of an issue.  I didn't ask the students to use light
colors for their book labels, so I needed something
that would show against mixed colors and darks.  I ended
up with a silver ink pen meant for dark papers.  Since
this is an art quilt, and not meant to be washed, I
felt I could take some liberties.  I then started outlining
the silve with black fabric pen.  This two toned technique
worked really, really well.  Even on the most patterned 
fabrics. 

 While it might be simpler and more efficient to ask
the students to use light colored, or solid, fabrics
for their title backgrounds, I really liked the colorfulness
of our quilt.  You might not be able to read the titles from
across the classroom, but the patterns of the fabrics
make a really wonderful impression. 

Bookcase quilt, the back

For the back of the Book Case quilt, 
I decided to do a mini signature quilt.
Each child was given a 4 by 4" square of fabric
and was then let loose to do whatever they liked.

Okay, not quite.  I talked to them about seam
allowance (stay a pencil width away from each
edge).  I asked them to play nicely with my fabric
pens (no pressing hard, no coloring the entire fabric
red just to see the ink run out.)  And, I told them
they had to include their name in whatever they
created.

This is when I let them run free.  They could just
write their name, they could draw a picture,
they could write their name over and over again.

Then, at home I pieced it into a grid.  Our classroom
had twenty five students, so it formed a lovely 5 by 5
grid.

Then, I wrote a dedication beneath the signature 
quilt to the teacher, and I included the year.  I was 
really happy with how the back turned out, and would 
love to do this again on a larger scale.

(And yes, they all played very nicely with my fabric pens.)

Bookcase Quilt (not an auction quilt, but it could be!)

For this quilt, I used a bookcase theme.
The idea is that each child creates a quilt block that
looks like the spine of a book, when put together,
and edged with wood grain fabric, the quilt looks
like a bookcase.  The book could be real titles,
or imagined titles, but they had to represent the
personality of the student who created it.

This is the sketch I made and used in my presentation 
to the class so they could have an idea what the finished
quilt would look like.  

I made two sample templates, but kept them very plain
so I wouldn't interfere with their creativity.  Text could
go in either direction.  Text was not a requirement, 
though. If a child wanted to create a spine what was 
just color and pattern, that was find.  I did handout rulers
and instructed them to only use straight lines.  No
curves or circles were allowed (this was a concession
on my part to make assembly easier).  I also limited
them to 5 fabrics, but this was a loose rule that I was
happy to make exceptions for.  Then, I let them go.

This is a sampling of what they created. 
I precut the templates into varying widths and heights,
but let the students choose which slip they wanted.
I think it is key to the success of this quilt that the books 
vary in dimension.  You'll notice that there are no 
seam allowances in the templates.  I added all of the
seam allowances in the construction phase of the quilt.

Since these are 3rd graders, I had them make all of
the notes on their patterns.  They wrote down
descriptions of the fabrics, and if they preferred they
could draw the patterns in. Each fabric swatch had to
be larger than the space it was to fill on their pattern.
I did double check the fabric size and the notes on the
templates when each child was done, so that I could
be sure that I understood what they'd written.   

I left class that day with a pile of patterns with the
fabrics pinned to the back of each template.  At home,
I had the help of another parent to trace the patterns
onto lightweight stabilizer.  I used a foundation
piecing technique to assemble the quilt.  With my
straight line only rule, the blocks came together
really quickly. I have a tutorial on foundation pieceing
here. 

 

Notes on doing this project with a classroom.

If I do this quilt again, I would be sure to tell the
students to hold on to their fabrics.  There were a
few students that thought I could find their fabrics in
the bin (we're talking 20 pounds of fabric) based on
descriptions like "red flowers".  I was flattered that
they had such faith in my deduction powers, but also
traumatized.  I also recommend that you forbid  
scissors.  I did this, but still had to repeatedly tell them
not to cut the fabric no matter how large they thought
the piece was. 

I used an hour of class time for this project and had
4 parent helpers.  We were able to also tackle 
a project for the back of the quilt, and everyone had
time to finish.  It should be noted, however, that I
have worked with all of these students before, and
could skip some of the introduction to how things
work. If I were to do this project with a different
class, I would only do the front, not the back of the
quilt.  (I'll cover the back in  another post.) 

Auction burnout, but not classwork burnout

I didn't make any auction projects this year.
It's shocking really, but I was Burnt Out. (Yes, with
the intentional cap's and everything.) 

I didn't miss the auction. Apparently making 9 auction
projects over 6 years makes a soul wear thin.  But,
it's not the work with the students, and it's not the
sewing.  No, it's the selling. It's the not knowing who
will get this work of love. It's that bit of random that
will claim your classwork when it gets to the auction,
and that sense of elation or depression when you find
out how much money your project made, or didn't make.

I had been moving away from the live auction during
the past few year, doing more presales, or projects
that could be reproduced and sold to the entire class,
but this year, I just didn't want to sell anything.

There is a passion that powers your work when it is
for a specific person, and I have missed that during
all of the auction projects.  So, this year I sat back,
and let another Mom do the auction project. I offered
help where I could, and let go.  

Then, in April, I missed the work with the class.  Sure
I taught classes in Parent Led Art, but there is such
joy in watching children comb through a bin of fabric.
So I approached Little e's teacher and asked,
"Would you like a quilt as a thank you gift at the end
of the year?" 

She answered, "Yes!" And we worked out the details of
class time, and what kind of a quilt would serve her best.
I offered her a lap quilt that she could take home, but
she opted for a small-ish wall hanging for her classroom.

What a difference it makes in my attitude to make a
quilt meant for a person, a specific person, not an
unknown highest bidder.  In keeping with the school
theme (the teacher's request), I put together a book
theme and gathered my fabrics.

Tardis, Dr Who, and Firefly Fabrics, Oh MY!

Introducing new custom printed fabrics for dice bags!

Oh yes, that would be Tardis fabric with a bit of 
Gallifreyan in the background.  This fabric was created
by Studio Fibonacci, and had perfect scale for a dice bag.

Oh, I need a Doctor, or eleven.  They're all here, and ready
to go!  From Hartnell to Matt Smith, the doctors get 
lovely details to highlight their individual personalities.
There's Tennants hair and Tom Baker's scarf.
This fabric was designed by Thirdhalfstudios. 

And for a different flavor of Geek, Oh yes, that would
be the cast of Firefly.  This is a fabric for those of us
who believe that the perfect afterlife must include
seasons 2-10 of Firefly.  Fly with Serenity's crew and
nothing in the Verse can stop us!

My favorite bit of this fabric?  That would be Jayne's
cunning hat.  This fabric was also designed by 
Studio Fibonacci. We aim to misbehave, indeed!

All of these fabrics were printed up using Spoonflower,
they are available at the shop.*

*(Um, they've sold out in premade, but are available
for custom bags!)

Queen's Jubilee

 The many colors of the Queen. 

(click to make larger)

I made this collage for my sister's birthday, which coincided 
with the Jubilee, so it seemed appropriate. 

They are all original stamps, in their original colors.
I haven't done any altering to the stamps, beyond
sewing them together.  The base of this project came
from a Mystery Bag of stamps my Mom gifted me with.
Once I started the project, I was shocked to see how
many more colors I had in my existing collection.