A Special Quilt

This quilt is a favorite of mine, though it is small and may not look like much it means the world to me. When my youngest son, Bryce, was in fourth grade they were studying the pioneers and had to do a project. Tom was working and going to school so Bryce had to pick something that I could help with and that did not include anything that involved power tools, or cutting implements.  We narrowed it down to making hand dipped candles or quilting. He picked quilting.

We went to the library and researched fabrics for the time period and took the book with us to quilt store to help us find fabrics that would work.  A wonderful lady at the store helped us pick fabrics and once they were purchased we headed home to get started.

Bryce traced a square on cardboard to use as his cutting template and with help from mom very carefully cut it out.  Then he traced a second one and I helped him to trace an inner line and cut out the center of the second square to he had a template for tracing his sewing line.  He traced his squares onto the fabric and cut out his squares. He then traced his sewing lines, with help from me to hold the template still.  I showed him how to pin the squares together and my job was done except for threading needles. He started to sew with some supervision from me until he got the stitch length to a workable size.  Everyday for a couple weeks he sewed on that nine patch, put the borders on and then he was ready to quilt.

I helped him cut out the batting and the background, then pinned them together for him.  My job once again became needle threader and he went to work quilting his miniature quilt.

Once the quilting was done I helped him trim the batting and backing down, then showed him how to do a folded over binding and helped him pin it in place.  I threaded a few more needles and got him started stitching down the binding.  He made his project and I am very proud of the fact that he worked so hard to complete it.

At parent-teacher conferences all the projects were on display and as a parent I was very proud of my son, because his was one of the few that was actually done by a student. There were many parents who earned grades on their projects, but very few students who actually earned their own grades. Bryce was one of those and he also learned a very valuable lesson in the process. He can always be proud of what he did, and that he did the work himself.  I feel sorry for those other students whose parents did not let them learn the value of hard work.

Of all the quilts I own, including those that were passed down in my family, this is the quilt that I hold the most dear and am the proudest of. In my mind it is a blue ribbon winner.