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.