Project Quilting 10.5 - Abcedarius (Alphabet)

Abcedarius: of or pertaining to the alphabet.  That was our prompt this week for Project Quilting.  I knew right away that I wanted to make something for someone to whom I owe a huge T.H.A.N.K.S! Ms. Christine is our classroom aide for 4K and 5K at school. I am teaching 4K this year.  It's my first year at that level (and, sadly, likely the last as it was a one year position to fill in for someone on leave).  Ms. Christine and I work hard every day to teach the alphabet and a myriad of other things to our 18 little loves.  She has been a lifesaver more than once and helps me keep my cool by making sure everything is prepped and ready to go.  She handles the most difficult kids with a kind and nurturing touch and treats me to surprises and pick me ups on a regular basis.  So. it is only fitting that I express a bit of my thanks with something just for her.

I knew that her word of the year for 2019 is "Breathe."  Well,  I actually only knew that because I texted her to ask if she HAD a word of the year about two hours after the challenge theme was posted.  Flowers for Spring seemed like a good thing to include, especially since she is allergic to many flowers and can't have fresh ones around.

Whew!  This is really a rough little sketch! But it got the job done!

After some sketching, I had a plan.  I dug around for the roll of fusible stuff that I was pretty sure I had...somewhere. And, actually, it was just where I expected it to be! It has been just amazing to find that I have all the stuff I've needed for these challenges. It feels good to know I am prepared to do all kinds of crafting, and I don't feel any urge at all to go and buy stuff!  There's no need!

I prepped little patches of all the colors I needed, mostly from charm squares. I couldn't resist that text print for the background.  Even more letters!  I stuck with my Project Quilting induced mantra - "Just DO, don't think!" - and drew some tulips, complete with the darker color to give them dimension.  This is NOT in my comfort zone, but I think they look pretty good!

This makes me smile.  Stained ironing board cover and all!

Staying in the "do it fast so there's no time for overthinking" mode, I printed out the word Breathe in a font I liked, cut and traced the letters, cut them from prepped fabric and cut some wonky squares to go behind them. Next came my favorite part - fusing everything in place. This is SO fun!  And so quick!  Somehow, I had all of this done by the time I left for work on Monday!

That evening, I dove into stitching around the tulips, stems and leaves.  By chance, I had watched a video tutorial on raw edge applique recently, and was able to apply some pointers it had given.  The stitching is not perfect by any means, but I was pretty tickled with the way it turned out.

By bedtime on Tuesday, everything had been fused, stitched, and I was ready to layer and quilt the next morning.  On Wednesday I tried out a bunch of different binding options.  I decided that the black pin dot would work for the binding and the back.  After just a bit of quilting in the  background areas, I realized that I had enough excess to do a self binding and without stopping to think about it...that was done, too!

On Thursday, I added some tabs for hanging to the back, and gifted it to Ms. Christine, complete with a quilt hanger that I found in the closet while looking for the fusible stuff, which just so happened to be the perfect size.  Oh, and I gave her a couple of Dr. Pepper's, too.

This is, I think , my fastest finish for Project Quilting so far.  I'm so happy with how it turned out, and I hope it brings smiles to Christine, too!

To my future self who will probably come back and read this post someday...It is worth noting that this mini quilt was completed during TECH WEEK!  For those of you who are not or do not have children involved in theater type things...this is the week leading up to a show.  (Sometimes this week is called HELL WEEK...I'll let you speculate as to why.)  Whenever anyone is this house is in a show (and we all are, at some point or another during the year...some of us more than once, one of us 4 or 5 times) I end up doing costume sewing.  Tech week for me, lately, has involved a lot of alterations or repairs.  During the time between  finding out the PQ prompt and finishing Ms. Christine's' mini quilt, I also shortened 12 pairs of pants, replaced two zippers, added shoulder straps to 9 strapless dresses, added 7 inches of fabric to the side seams of two dresses, hand stitched heavily sequined straps to shorten them and keep them on the shoulders (8 dresses = 16 straps) , added a panel to a dress that wouldn't zip up all the way and inserted Velcro to replace a zipper that was far too tricky to take out (frilly, fraying fabric).  And I went to work.  And I cooked.  There's a longer list of things I didn't do, but this post isn't about that.  Yep.  I'm feeling pretty good about this finish and living to tell the story of another tech week!

Finished mini quilt measures approximately 10 x 13 inches and was created by me, in Slinger, WI.
Linking up to Project Quilting 10.5 at Persimon Dreams.