Here is my fourth quilt finished in 2020!
I wanted to make a quilt for my older son's preschool teacher, Mr. F. My older son, N, was in a special preschool program through our school district for kids who need a little extra help with language and social skills. N was in Mr. F's class for almost two full school years - he joined his class in October of 2018 and "graduated" in May this year, although he hasn't been in the classroom since March due to the shelter in place order. N has grown and learned so much in these two years, and I know Mr. F has played a big part in that. Last year, I volunteered for the class's holiday party, and that very short classroom experience made me really appreciate how hard teachers work, and I was determined to make Mr. F a quilt to thank him for being an awesome teacher!
I really like this Bear Tracks Quilt pattern - it's simple and modern, and suitable for a guy. I don't know anything about Mr. F's style or home, but I think a quilt like this is pretty flexible. I used a FQ bundle of the Craftsy Boundless Solids - I love the color combination in this bundle. I almost wish I had bought more of this fabric because I have so many ideas for the scraps of this quilt! I was able to use some of these scraps for the MQG's mini quilt swap this year.
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| "Dark" blocks - you can see the two where I used a lighter color instead of the white. |
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| I love these colors! |
When I was working on the "light" blocks, it was around Easter and these colors fit in with the holiday so perfectly. I've become totally obsessed with these colors and I want to make a quilt for myself with them. This combo just really says "spring" to me! This was about a month into the shelter in place and I was beginning to realize it was going to last a lot longer than just a few weeks, and I was feeling really down about the situation. To make myself feel better, I was thinking a lot about spring and Easter and renewal, and these fabrics helped put me in a better mood. I don't mean to be trite about a serious situation, but I'm sure my fellow fabric lovers will understand.
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| "Light" blocks in progress. |
I really wanted to finish this quilt in April but it was a tough few weeks and I didn't do much sewing; when May rolled around, I knew I better get it in gear to finish this quilt in time before the school year ended! Even though N wasn't in the classroom, he was doing a little bit of distance learning and we were still in touch with Mr. F. I knew there would be an opportunity to pick up stuff that had been left in the classroom so I thought that would be a good time to give Mr. F his gift. I had a deadline and I didn't want to miss it!
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| My son wrote his name on the label. |
One thing I really wanted to do was have my son N write his name on the label, since he learned to do that from Mr. F! I thought it might take a couple of tries, but N did it perfectly the first time. I wrote in the other details after he wrote his name. It made me a little nervous to make such a personalized label because I didn't know if this quilt was Mr. F's style, or if he even liked quilts, and was open to the possibility of him giving it away. I would never want to create a sense of obligation for the recipients of my quilts. But I also wanted to reflect how special the two years that N spent in his class were. I also found out that N's first year in his class was Mr. F's first year of teaching, and I thought it might be pretty cool for him to have the handwriting of one of the first kids he taught to write.
I quilted it with the trusty serpentine stitch - I really don't think you can go wrong with this method of quilting.
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| Texture! |
When we had the chance to go to the school at the end of the year to pick up stuff, N was able to say goodbye to his teacher and I gave Mr. F the quilt in a gift bag. He didn't open it right then, but he texted me later to say that he's glad he didn't open it in front of us because he cried when he did, and that he loves quilts and he's excited to have one of his own. So I feel really good about the personalized gift for Mr. F! It's just so nice to know that my work was appreciated. And I hope we communicated how much we appreciated him as a teacher!
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| I found a leaf print with a lot of the colors from the front of the quilt. This is generally how I make the backs of quilts. |
