The grand unveiling <.....trumpet fanfare please.....>

After a rather jam packed week of stitching and various school events I have managed to finish my quilt of the Century! Whoo hooo for me!!

I think I've had an out of body experience with it all. Setting such a huge challenge, arranging with a very patient Head of the school and All of the staff, fitting in with numerous special days and school trips, I have not had time to think about it too much.

I started this on the 22nd of May with Yr6's dyeing the yards of fabric and it had to be finished by  the 13th of July for the school Parade.

This is the final layout of panels, before stitching the long lengths and binding.

 Mr Webster wanted the children's memories of New Bradwell incorporated onto the quilt somewhere, so we decided that each class would have a panel of the squares to draw on. These 16 panels were then stitched together to make the final quilt.

Some of the detail was amazing and each year group have certainly had a full and inspiring year of activities!

F1 - these are 3-4 year olds: lots of gardens and butterflies a hot cross bun and some frogs.

A year 1 class: a visit to the church, a visit to a Safari Park and the lifecycle of butterflies.

A year 5 class: a visit to the RAF museum and the theatre and the O2 arena for the young voices concert.

So here I stand rather warm and exhausted with  the finished quilt. Overall the colours and details work well I think. There will always be bits I would have done differently given time to think and the benefit of hind site, but it's up and every child in the school took part in the project.

Detail of the 435 squares:

There were no great trauma's and every child took great pride in their work, what a pleasure this was to make this with them - honest! 

Thank you New Bradwell children and staff for letting me loose in your school.

Jane x

(Mrs Charles)

Just tying up loose ends.......hardly!

So this is the final instalment of 'making the squares'.

Printing patterns caused my the most headaches I think, the little dharlings were more interested in painting the letter and around the letter rather that a bit of both. Given simple tools to print with, the prefered to daub the paint on. Some did well, like this one below. Others made a great pattern and then got carried away and painted all over it again. I think I was making it too much fun!

Also, perhaps if I had given them something hard to print with they wouldn't have been tempted to sponge the paint on - I will never know, not in this project anyway. Perhaps next time!

Year 2 was a quick but effective 'design a letter and then paint round it with dilute ink' technique. It gives a lovely light contrast to the other very colourful squares, but really effective results.

Foundation 2 - the 4-5 year olds - agh. They did well, the technique was simple, but the chats we had were priceless. This little lad drew a cupcake and a volcano next to his letter, who knows why? But I was not going to get in the way of his creativity.

Sp here they are, the Super Severn piles of squares. 5 weeks ago this was 5m of plain calico.

 And just because I like to pile things up and take their photo, here is the pile.....

Next stage - the children think of their memories from this year at school, this will be a challenge with all age groups I think!