Crafternoon With My Student

Monday:  One of my students told me that her younger stepsister was having a birthday party on Saturday and likes cheetahs and could I make her something!  Ummmm.  This is a child who helped make and then won the Spring Carnival Auction Quilt, so she is well aware that I sew.  She has also had a really rough year, so I thought about it for 2 seconds and said that yes we could come up with something, but it might not be an actual cheetah toy.  It's a 4-day week for us, so whatever it was had to be quick and with supplies on hand.  I told her we could make a pillow.

Tuesday:  I took a 12" square of muslin and the fabric markers so she could design her pillow front.  I was thinking of some animal print fabric I had saved (for 15 years!) for a special project, but if it would work for her backing that would be good.  Imagine my surprise when she starts drawing a rainbow colored heart with cheetah spots!  Looks like the animal print fabric is safe for a few more years.  She didn't know how to correctly spell the sister's name, so that part got put on hold until we had verification.

We had a good time after school with her drawing and chatting and me grading papers.  When I got home I had to figure out how to finish it.  I wanted to make it "girly" but in the absence of appropriate lace I made a long strip of rainbow colors and made a ruffle.  Considering I just cut whatever made the most sense from the scrap of fabric I pulled, it came out surprisingly uniform, which was not my intention at all.   

I had a small pillow form on hand, which guided my measurements.  One thousand pins later, the front had a ruffle.  Then I found the perfect backing and sewed that on. 

Wednesday: She had also thought of how to package this gift, and asked "if I happened to have an extra gift bag at home" so I choose a cute one from my stash.  As soon as she got to school, she was beside herself waiting to see what I had done for my part.   It was the biggest smile I have seen from her all year.  After school she added the name and more hearts and together we inserted the pillow form and stitched it shut.  She did the packaging herself.

She was so pleased with herself.  If she doesn't learn anything else this year, I hope these afternoons will hold meaning for her.  I know they were good for me.