Tangram Quilt

Over the last month my Mom and I have embark on new quilting style/technique/design that we are very excited to share. On Monday that quilt was finished and now with a picture uploaded I am ready to share it with the world.

How our adventure stared:

Every year at The Laureate they hold an annual dinner and benefit auction to raise money for the school. Each class donates a class project that is then auctioned off that evening. My mom had a great idea of offering to Sam's teacher that we teach the children about Tangrams, then have them create pictures using the tangram pieces...after we would take those pictures and turn them into a quilt. It was brilliant. I presented it to his Teacher and she was very excited. In fact had just done tangrams with the kids and had them make pictures, it was a beautiful thing! (Mainly because the week we had planed on giving the kids to do the pictures was now an extra week we had to quilt.)


Here are a few of the kids original art:


We took the pictures and counted up each triangle, square, and parallelogram by color and shape pick out the colors that best match the color choices of the kids and then began cutting. We cut somewhere upwards of 150 triangles, squares and parallelogram. Well technically my mom did, this was her department. Then using an applique method we carefully, painstakingly laid out each one of the kids pictures in fabric to match the original, trying our hardest not to straighting or make seamless but follow the kids tilted roofs and wild boats! After each picture was applique we then sewed the whole top together and sent it back to school so each child could sign their piece of art and get to see one stage of the quilting process.

Then came the fun part, embellishments. First graders love to add eyes, smoke, seaweed, flags, suns, and even sun rays to their pictures. Well mom and I couldn't leave that alone, so we went to work. First my mom embroidered what aspects of the pictures she could, such as eyes, mouths and even one girls golden brown hair. Then we sandwich the quilt and I took over adding the rest of the embellishments through the actual quilting. We had metallic green seaweed, golden, red and orange metallic sun rays, black stair cases, windows and doors. And what fish picture would be complete with out metallic blue bubbles! I have never changed my thread color that many times on one quilt! But it was fun and in the end we had a beautiful quilt:


On the back we quilted in a key, which gives the title and artist name of each picture. Of course my mom and I were in love with this quilt and as we drove to the auction last night we were begging the boys to bid on our hard work so we could have it back. Well....

My dad put up a good fight, but when the price went up to $400.00 he/we decide to let it go. (I knew the mom we were bidding against and knew it would have a good home.) The final price was $402.00. I was happy to have helped the school raise that much money in one auction item. My mom and I are also proud to say that out of all the classroom projects the quilt brought in the highest $ amount!! YEAH.

After the auction the Mother who bought the quilt came over and told us she was willing to go to $600.00!! She told me that when she was a little girl her grandma (or mom) had made her a quilt out of her baby things and then put it away and on her 18th birthday presented her with this quilt from her childhood. It meant the world to her and I guess has become a family tradition in away. Her aunt did it for her kids and she wanted to do it for her daughter (who's art work is in this quilt) so when she saw the quilt she wantedit. Now she will save it for her daughter and give it to her when she is older. I knew then that the quilt truly had gone to the right family!!

We cant wait for next year, who knows what quilt we might do for the second grade class, or the primary class room, or the toddler room!! OH no..3 kids, which classroom do you choose to make the quilt for?!?