Ideas for a School Quilt

Create a memory of school days with a quilt.

Many individuals look back on time in school fondly, long after they have exited the hallways of learning and permanently packed up their number 2 pencils. To give your child a tool to use in reflecting upon these days in years to come, craft an all-about-school quilt. There are a number of motifs that you can select for this quilt, depending upon the type of memory you most want to capture.

School Colors Quilt

Make a school-spirited quilt by crafting your quilt exclusively using school colors. Purchase quilting fabrics in an assortment of prints, each featuring one of the school color’s prominently. For example, if creating a quilt to represent the bulldogs with the school colors blue and gray, you could select a print with blue paw prints and another that resembles gray stone. Create quilt squares of your choice inter-mixing these two colors to make them representative of your school.

Fond Memories Photo Quilt

Add some engaging photos to your school-themed quilt. Gather pictures of your child and his classmates and scan them into the computer. Print these pictures in mirror image on iron-on transfer paper and iron them on to white broadcloth. Use these broadcloth pictures as the centers of your quilt squares, quilting around them in complementary colors. Piece together your quilt, placing the pictures in random order or placing them more meaningfully, such as in a chronological progression.

School Shirt Quilt

If your child’s school years have left him with an abundance of T-shirts representing everything from the time he made honor roll to his sixth-grade football team, put these T-shirts to good use by transforming them into a quilt. Cut apart the shirts, using the center of each shirt as the center of a quilt square. Sew your squares together to create an eclectic – and reflective of school – quilt.

Lessons Learned Quilt

Make the focus of your quilt the different lessons that your child learned. Sit down with your child and create a list of things she learned during the school year. For example, the list may include the Bill of Rights, how to add and the photosynthesis process. Using this list as your jumping off point, create a square to represent each of the things she learned, making a square that features appliqued numbers and addition signs, for example. Embroider the topic of each lesson at the bottom of the square to indicate what topic the square represents before finishing your quilt.

References

• PBS: Quilts
• The Craft Studio: Quilting with Children