Heartbreak

You might have noticed that the big blue square recently disappeared from our quilt. It was a marker of sorts, the space where the giant heart was supposed to go.

Yes, that's past-tense.

After pinning on the stars, I looked at that quilt forward, backward, and sideways, and I faced the fact that a giant heart placed in the middle would ruin everything. Kids are so good at mixing paint on surfaces until everything turns grey, coloring over drawings again and again until the lines disappear, gluing piles of beads and bobs onto thick paper until it becomes soggy and sags. With a giant heart in the middle of our quilt, the lily would definitely be gilded. It was time to stop.

But I had to convince the class of this. So I used my fourth classroom visit to have a serious discussion with the kids.

When I first arrived, I unfolded the quilt and revealed the smattering of stars. The kids oohed and aaahed (the stars have a thing going on; they are noticeably cool), but when I brought up the removal of the heart, I saw grimaces. I tried to explain about visual flow, about learning when to stop, about how overworking our quilt might erode its unique quality. The verbal acrobatics didn't work, so I went with the next best thing that all second-graders understand: I took a vote.

This time, the heart did not divide along gender lines. While most of the pro-heart contingent were indeed girls, there were also a few boys--including the one who had called the quilt "too girly" and his dissenter friend. Unbelievable.

That's when I realized that these fickle little pickles didn't need my commentary and arguments. What felt critical today, might be insignificant tomorrow. Thankfully, the anti-heart camp won by four votes, so I didn't have to make the final decision on my own.

Several hours later, I took a seam ripper to that blue panel in the middle of our quilt. I forced the thread to break and blew away the annoying little bits that always wind up in my hair and on my clothes. I watched the seams relax and fall apart. Regardless of tearing away fabric and an unworkable idea, the true heart of our quilt remains. And that's all that matters.

A Pieced Puzzle

Good news! Thanks to the work of 11 kids, the twelve panels of our crazy quilt have been pieced together!

Does this mean that help is no longer needed? Far from it. The sashing waits in the wings, so keep those kids coming...

Star Light, Star Bite

YEOW! These stars bite!

Thankfully, most of them have been sewn onto the quilt. I can assure you that having fingers stabbed by renegade pins--followed by that icy cold sensation that travels up through the shoulders, neck and head--is not pleasant. However, they are typical battle wounds of a sewist, and I've had my fair share of attacks.

But the finished product is worth it:

Thanksgiving Brain Teaser

If you're looking to challenge your child during the break, look no further than our quilt!

During my second visit to the class, I gave the kids this math problem while I set up my supplies. They only had five minutes to figure it out before we had to move on.

However, our lucky children now have a week of unencumbered bliss--and time to turn their brains into pretzels.

Here it goes:

Our quilt is 98" wide and 103" long. There is a 10" sashing (border) around the edge. There are 12 panels in the quilt--three panels across, and four panels down. The burning question: what is the size (in inches) of each panel?

Growing and Growing

No-School November is here! With all of that downtime and with the help of some friends (including some very willing photographers), our quilt is growing and growing.

So far, seven kids have been hard at work putting the pieces together. Check it out:

Billions and Billions

My third visit to the classroom was much of the same. The kids placed the final pieces of scrap fabric on the bed sheet. However, we did manage to add one special touch to our quilt:

One per child...

...30 in total...

...to culminate in a powerful and fierce display... 

...of pyrotechnic brilliance...

...(per the boys, ahem)...

...stars, you know. A mother lode of stars! 

The Day After

Shortly after the first lesson in the classroom, the plans for our quilt changed. It was uncontrollable and bigger than us. It was about resources.

So during my second visit to the class, I had to teach a quick lesson that our quilting grandmothers and pioneers had no choice but to follow: Make do or do without. It tied in nicely with the patchwork theme.  

However, Make do or do without might have been difficult for the kids to hear. It was the day after Halloween, and their bodies were silently churning through an elixir of neon-colored sugar from the night before. My son gave me the update: "Today, a bunch of kids felt sick to their stomach and someone barfed." But surprisingly, the class was well-behaved and considerate (if perhaps, a bit comatose). 

I explained that our quilt would not have a watercolor look because we did not receive that style of fabric. I also explained that our quilt would be made from a combination of natural and synthetic fibers rather than 100% cotton. The kids stared back at me. 

Then I explained that we were going to cut our donated fabric scraps and clothing into small pieces and pin them onto a bed sheet in the style of a crazy quilt. I also explained that their scissors--those round-tipped, plastic things that barely cut paper--would not be able to cut fabric, however, several pairs of fabric scissors were available and my son had a pair of Fiskars that was strong enough for fabric, too. 

My son held up his tiny scissors and laughed. "This cuts fabric?" he said.

That made the kids wake up. They began to pull out and examine their scissors, and nearly the entire class waved pointy-tipped Fiskars at me. Whoa. It was the day after Halloween, and the peasants just realized they were armed.

But it did make things easy. I threw piles of fabric onto each cluster of desks and the kids attacked (and marveled at their newfound weaponry). Fabric was cut, chopped and diced, and the kids dropped piles and piles of it in front of the bed sheet. Some dictated where they wanted their swatch to be pinned, and others didn't care.

It's important to note that I wasn't the only adult leading a bunch of children with scissors and pins. Two other moms were with me: one supervising the kids with the fabric, the other helping me pin the swatches onto the sheet. And the kids were producing faster than we could keep up with. I was sweaty and thirsty. And very, very busy. And there was the frequent tap, tap, tap of little fingers all over my arms and back (kids who were proud of their work--and scissors--and wanted me to admire it).

In the end, this might have been the best way to begin our patchwork, crazy quilt: the day after Halloween with the newfound respect for a school supply and stomachs still trying to digest a wretched dinner. And right before the class was about to leave to go home, I also spotted the boy who had labeled our quilt "girly."

"Hey!" I said.

He turned around.

"So, what do you think? Is the quilt still too girly?"

He looked up and down the bed sheet and studied the patchwork. His hands moved through the air like they were sizing things up.

"With the colors and the way it is, naw, it's not girly."

And just like that, our classroom had found its groove. And it was crazy.

I now know what it feels like to be in the U.S Senate.

Presenting the first half of the lesson was easy. All I did was open the door into the world of sewing and binding, and I saw little bodies upright on the carpet. One of my goals was to make sure the class understood the deeper meaning of quilts--how they are as much utilitarian and artwork as they are political and spiritual. I also hoped everyone would feel a connection to the quilters themselves, especially since we were about to embark on the design of our own quilt.

"What kind of feeling would you like our quilt to give to its owner?" I said.

It was a softball. Everyone's hand shot up.

"Happiness!"

"Love!"

"Excitement!"

Even the teacher got into it by suggesting peace.

This was a cinch. The class had brainstormed a good list of positive emotions and now they needed to simply choose one of them. I took a vote.

Hands shot up and down as kids changed their mind. I tried again, but I got different hands and double-votes and abstentions. After the third round, I gave up. No problem. I wrote the three most popular emotions on the top of the flip chart paper: love, joy, happiness.

I moved on. I told the class we needed to choose one symbol for our quilt.

The boys wanted an explosion of stars to symbolize joy.

The girls wanted a giant heart in the middle to symbolize love.

Again, I took a vote. This time, the class was neatly divided; it was a stand-off between the boys and the girls. I tried again, but nobody budged. I had no choice (besides, I only had ten minutes), so I announced our quilt would have both symbols.

But then the class had differing opinions as to whether love travels up through the body or simply floats in the air like that delicious flutter in the chest. I'm no fool; I had been down this road before, so I tried the art of compromise.

"Do you think love does both? How can we make it look like the heart is floating? With wings?" I said.

"Wings! Wings!" the kids said.

Nobody gave any other suggestions, so I drew wings on the heart. That was easy.

"And then to make love travel upward, can we add some hearts to the stars?" I said. I drew a couple of small hearts below.

The girls looked smug, but the boys furrowed their brows. They were unhappy that hearts mingled in their star explosion. Okay, scratch that. I scribbled out the exploding hearts and saw shoulders relax.

I had five minutes, so I moved onto the quilt's slogan.

"What short message do we want to say with our quilt?" I said.

Hands shot up, but whenever I pointed to the kids to speak, they lost their train of thought. I could tell they wanted to say something profound but didn't yet know how to do it. It was like a dog chasing its tail: angst trying to channel angst. I thought it was cute.

However, I did receive a few suggestions, and I wrote them on the flip chart paper:

Be happy.
Exploding love.
I love life.
I love light.

Then it was time to wrap up. I told the class to think about the quilt's slogan, and we would revisit it later. I was pleased with what we had accomplished in 15 minutes. And just as I was about to pull our design off the easel and roll it into a tube, a hand shot up in the back of the carpet. I looked over to see a boy wrinkle his nose.

"Why does it have to be so girly?" he said.

"Girly?" I said. I feigned ignorance (after all, our quilt had a giant heart in the middle, and I wasn't about to admit it).

Two other boys scrunched up their faces and eyeballed me. They didn't trust this quilt.

My son sat in the back of the carpet with them. Possibly in an effort to save me or maybe just to get the design officially completed, he whispered about the teacher's lesson on magical phrases, free verse and how anything goes and it doesn't really matter. The dissenters didn't look convinced (but parents, please, please, pretty please, just use it).

And that's the story of how our quilt began to grow roots. And how a group of second-graders worked (somewhat) together to make it look just like this:

Colorways

After the boys completed their work of piling like colors together, I sifted through our manna of fabric scraps. We have silks and wools and cottons and polyesters.

Part of the donation came in the form of swatch colorways. With entertaining names such as Eros and Kisses, I can't help but think that our quilt will be made with a whole lotta love, after all. 

It's never a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm grateful for what we've got, and just like our quilting grandmothers, we'll make do. With that in mind, our quilt will be made from both natural and synthetic fabrics.

As for our quilt colorway, here's what will be in it:

Oranges, coppers, rusts and tans
Yellows and golds
True blues, navys, robin egg blues, denims and blacks

And let the games begin.

It turns out apple pie is really a carrot.

In an effort to keep our childrens' fingers on the pulse of this quilt from beginning to end, I had two of our classmates (and one very willing neighbor) organize the garbage bag of scrap donations from the Whole 9 Yards.

Naturally, three boys have better things to do than organize fabric into piles according to color.

It took the smell of two baking apple pies (that lasted an agonizing hour in the oven; not to mention an agonizing hour of me hearing, "Are the pies done yet?") to spring them into action.

And just like that, one pie and one bag of fabric scraps:  dusted.