School Auction Quilts

All Saints Catholic School's Auction happens tomorrow! I've been asked to sew a quilt for several years and this year I sewed the quilt for the First Grade Class.  Sandy Gossage designed it and when she told me I would have to applique palm trees and leaves on a big square of fabric I almost freaked out.  "Oh, this will be so easy," she said.

The pieces were large and simple!  I did the machine applique and took it back to her and she drew the vines and leaves and the children made handprints that turned into monkeys swinging from the branches!  The finished size is 57x57 so it's more of a wall hanging!

It's just a treat for me to work with the creative teachers and even though I tell them, "I only sew, and don't ask me to pick out fabric or design anything," last year I had to scrounge around for watermelon fabric in September.  Surprisingly a Google search for watermelon fabric made the 2011 quilt another Sandy Gossage success!

2011 Kindgergarten Krop

I sewed this Angel Quilt in 2005.  The children's handprints formed the wings of the angels.  

I spent a lot of time on the border for this quilt and even made a bias binding!  Back in those days every class quilt was big enough for a twin bed - there was no such thing as a wall hanging!


The Kool Kids Quilt of 2006 became a family project involving my daughter, Karen, and her mother in law, Delores.  We picked out the fabric in September and worked for months cutting out little pieces that eventually became the clothing for these Kool Kids.  My grandson, Jacob, won the drawing to be included in the big block with the teacher!  Karen obtained a computer file with all the kids fall school pictures and she printed each little head on fabric that could then be ironed onto the quilt!  Delores fussed about every shirt and skirt, making sure the fabric fit the personality of the child! It was a lot of work, but look at the end result that brought almost $2,000 to the school!

The auction moved from February to October in 2009 so Karen, Delores, and I agreed to make another quilt for Jacob's 3rd grade class.  We thought a Christmas theme might work and this one really was quite simple to sew, but Delores spent hours finding just the right ornaments to hang on the tree.  

The back of the quilt had the individual blocks that each child created, so as to make the quilt reversible.  It's actually a wall hanging and has been hanging in the O'Shaughnessy home at Christmastime ever since thanks to a generosity of the O'Shaughnessy Grandparents.