Auction quilt

The friend I gave the wedding guestbook quilt to had given my information to a friend of hers who loved the quilt I had made and wanted me to make one for her as well.  She contacted me and said she was looking for a quilt to be made for her granddaughters school that was having it's 50th anniversary and this quilt would be auctioned off at their anniversary event.  And she was going to pay me for it!  Eeek!!

I was so flattered that she loved the other quilt I had made and had specifically sought me out to make a quilt for her.  It was a bit overwhelming.  But I accepted because it sounded like a cool idea and I like making other people happy.  Who doesn't right?

She wanted squares that the kids in her granddaughters class could draw pictures on and then I would piece it all together.  The school is a catholic school so the kids would write something about what faith means to them or something.  She then wanted to incorporate catholic symbols of some kind into the quilt.  I got to work on designing the pattern and picking the colors. And since I'm not religious (meaning I don't go to church and only know the basics about religion), I had to do some research on the Saint for the school, St Rose of Lima, and other religious symbols that I could use.  It was a lot of work looking back on it now.  It wasn't just pick out the fabric and go, there was so much more to it than that.  I knew this quilt needed to be as meaningful as possible since it was for a 50th anniversary of a school.

I learned from doing the wedding quilt that giving the "artists" boundaries with which to write or draw in is important.  Since I was working with 4th graders I wanted to give them room to be creative but also create the boundary so the seam allowance was protected as was their art.  I went with white squares bordered with either blue or gold fabric, which are the school colors.

The squares ended up being 12x12.  When I got the squares back (40 total) from the kids and started to lay it out on my floor I realized the squares were too big so I ended up trimming the borders down so that the squares were 10x10 instead and it was more manageable.

For the religious symbols I chose to put them in the four corners of the quilt.  I used red roses for the Saint, a gold cross, white doves and a trinity symbol.  I used a T shirt from the school as a center piece for the quilt as well.

For the quilting I did straight lines through out the top with alternating blue and yellow thread.  On the border I used a gold sulky thread to go with the golden rose fabric I chose for the border.

This was such an amazing quilt to work on and a crazy experience.  I wanted it to be absolutely perfect for her and the school.   I have to learn to forgive myself for every little mistake that I see.  "Mistake that I see" is important to point out because we, the quilters, are our own worst critics and will know every thing we mess up on but we have to remember that just because we know its a mistake doesn't mean the general public will.  It was a learning experience beyond words and was incredibly gratifying.  

And I need to take some photography classes.  :p