Wednesday 25 April 2007

SOME SUGGESTIONS PLEASE

Every year our kinder has a trivia night. What a hoot it is. Funny to see a whole group of thirty-something year olds let free, without kids for the night. It obviously doesn't happen that often.

One of the items auctioned on the night is a memorabilia creation from each of the four classes. As much as I love our kinder; its community and the warmth of the teachers, creativity isn't exactly their strong point. So they usually just get the kids to do the hand prints on canvas thing. Considering the skill level involved, the cheapness of the materials and the fact that we all have our own children to reproduce a similar piece of "artwork", I have been blown away by the prices these canvases fetch. It has actually become a bit of a competition as to how silly the bidders can all be in paying such a price. All I can say is I am glad the kinder profits.

This year someone made the suggestion of doing the prints on fabric. They asked me if it would be too much work to quilt the fabric. Well, that was all the suggestion I needed. My mind was racing. I think its a great idea. I just think we can do a little bit better than simply quilting one piece of fabric. I think piecing a quilt together, with some blocks that the kids have personalised would be great. Of course these quilts, one from each class, would have to look beautiful. The sort of thing that anyone (including myself) would want to have folded over the arm of their sofa, hanging in their child's room etc.

So, I am calling for suggestions. Rather than relying on my own limited ideas I thought who else better to ask than all of you craft bloggers. I am thinking the kids can personalise their blocks with hand prints or draw pictures of themselves or their families. Are there any other suggestions?

I am thinking they can be used in log cabin blocks like this or a brick style like this, nice and easy.

Thankfully I have had a great response to my call for helpers at the kinder. I had envisioned my neighbour and I sewing all four quilts ourselves. So, get those ideas flowing and let's see what we can create.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This might give you some ideas - http://www.littlecritters.com.au/ - you might even be able to get them to do the printed squares???
and then I'd say log cabin. Look forward to hearing how it goes

Jo said...

I'm blown away by the fact that you have had people volunteer to help! Can't really offer any suggestions, but I'll put my thinking cap on and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Jade said...

How about getting the kids to do some potato stamping on the fabric? They can go wild on the stamp design ideas.

Then you can go with log cabin, interspersed with the usual square blocks to showcase fabric artwork.

little women said...

Love the idea of a quilt - never loved the idea of those hand print canvases in my lounge room! I wondered if you could still get
" hobby tex" markers that the children could draw a picture with. My mum went wild in the 70's with them ( very kitch) but they do last and wash well.

Miss*Laurence said...

I think dizzyjackey has a good idea, with the potato prints because it may give you the opportunity to control the shapes: leaves, suns, boats, etc.
What about making a map of the town/village? print the houses, draw the school, the church etc and piecing would be fun with quilting pathways from one to the other...
Since I don't know what a kinder is, I may be way out of line here! What about painting self portraits? mum, dad, children etc all drawing each other in a cartoon fashion, no need for art school. What about setting a theme? Like "seaside" or "spring" it may help with coordinating colours?
Good luck in any case!