Tag Archives: quilting with kids

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May was our first month sewing with the kiddos for the Kids Quilt Round Robin that I'm co-hosting with Sarah of Berry Barn Designs. My kids have each created a 20" x 20" block.

My daughter R decided on an animal theme. She wanted to make a star block and chose this version with quarter square triangles. We made the QSTs oversized and trimmed them down to size.

The star unit is an 18" finished block, so R chose to add one strip of each fabric to bring the block up to size. I loved listening to her talk herself through the decision of where to put which strip.

She decided on a design with the border strips that required partial seams, so I helped her with that. Now she can check that off her Quilter's Card. ;-)

 

My son G chose a sports theme for this quilt. He wanted to make a baseball and bat (the glove got edited out in the process) so I helped him sew his first inset circle and do his first fusible applique. For his circle, he started by drawing on the stitches with a fabric marker. Then we used the "pin the heck out of it" method of machine sewing an inset circle. I got him started and we worked together on pinning the first 1/4 of the circle, then I handed off to him with pins at the 1/8 points of the circle and he filled in by pinning between those. He had to take a break because, "It's like, BAM oh, I only went through one layer. BAM aww, it's in the wrong place, BAM *finally* I put the pin in the right place... for every pin." Quilting is apparently very hard work. ;-)

He machine pieced the circle, taking a few slow stitches between removing pins. He worked on smoothing the purple fabric to alleviate puckers.

For his applique he drew the bat the size he wanted it on paper, then traced it onto fusible.

G finished the applique by stitching around the perimeter with a fancy stitch.

 

Both blocks have been mailed off to the kids who will add a block to the project. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with. We're also looking forward to seeing what comes our way for the kids to work on next!

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Summer break from school is approaching. Among other things, this means a little more time for my kids to sew. I was discussing summer sewing plans with Sarah of Berry Barn Designs and she suggested that we co-host a kids round robin. This idea sounded great to me. We’ve gathered a group of nine young quilters from around the United States to participate in our Kids Quilt Round Robin. (We have one team of sisters sewing together, so eight quilts will be made. The round robin will have two groups of four.)

A round robin is a group of people participating to contribute to each other’s quilts, where the entire project is passed around the circle, with each person contributing. In each group of four, the kids will sew one section for their own quilt and one section for each of the other three quilts. When the project returns to them, they will have four completed units to put together a 40” x 40” quilt top.

Officially starting May 1, the kids will each sew their first 20” x 20” block or 10” x 40” row in May. (Of course parent help is allowed!) Then the first of the month in June, July and August their project will be passed to the next person in their group. September 1st the package will return to them so the quilt top can be put together and quilted.

My kids have each decided on the theme for their quilt. My daughter, R, will be making a cat quilt, and she’s chosen a geometric block featuring Tula Pink’s Disco Kitty fabric. She’ll be sending some extra Tula fabric along in case the other kids would like to include it in their blocks. My son, G, has decided on a sports theme for his quilt and is featuring baseball in his first block. He’ll be piecing his first inset circle and using applique in his design.

I’ll be sharing our KQRR sewing each month, and in November we’ve planned a blog hop to show off the finished projects.

If you have a young quilter, we’d love for you to sew along with us at home. Tag Me @sarahmgoer and Sarah @berrybarndesigns on Instagram with your progress shots.

My biggest tip for sewing and quilting with kids is to work in small chunks of time (and to take a break if either of you get frustrated). One block or row a month is a good, slow pace in my opinion. When sewing with my son on his first quilt, sometimes it would just be one or two seams that we’d put together in a sewing session. All those little bits add up!

I look forward to sharing what we create in the round robin and seeing what your young quilters create. Happy sewing!

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Over the winter break, my son and I worked to finish his fourth and largest quilt. He began work on it this past summer and it was quilted in November. My final finish of 2017 was to help him finish it up on New Year's Eve.

G designed the quilt to be a twin-sized bed quilt for his sister. All of his fabrics were chosen by him from my stash. I think we all especially love the teal turtle fabric. I love his combination of colors and fabrics, especially the addition of that bold green and yellow print. He made the design decision for that print and the turtle print to not ever be right next to each other.

We sent it out to a local long arm quilter (Tami Levin). G chose the Baptist Fan quilting motif. I really like the curved quilting. It adds a great dimension to the quilt. The lines of stitching are about an inch apart.

One of my favorite features of my kids' quilts are their hand written labels. (I usually have them include their age, we'll have to add in "age 6" after his name.) I like that it shows his cursive writing. Once the quilt was back he commented that he wished he had written the whole label in cursive. He's also decided he'd like to rename the quilt. I'm not sure if that's really happening. Note that since I like to attach a label before quilting, sometimes the finish date is a little off due to my optimism on how quickly I'll get it bound. ;-)

Here's the full view of this cheerful 67" x 85" quilt.

My daughter is now happily sleeping under it in her ocean room. My son has decided since he's made himself a quilt, two for his sister (including this one), and one for his dad, it is now time to make me a quilt. We discussed his plans at our one-on-one dinner this week and he would like it to be purple and grey, twin-sized so it's large enough for me to cuddle up with, and he'd like glow in the dark purple paint on it. I'm intrigued by his vision and look forward to seeing what he creates next.

I'm liking up to Needle and Thread Thursday, TGIFF and Finish It Up Friday. I'm also linking up to the Q4 Finishes Link-Up. See my Q4 list here.

 

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