Teacher Whitework Gifts!

It was the last day of school for my little one yesterday ... his first year of school already over and done with. Where did that year go?

On Monday he came home with a huge bag of work, lots of pictures and letter tracings. He has come such a long way in a year. To say thank you to his teacher and classroom assistant I made them a whitework cushion. I used bleached muslin and quilted 2 different patterns at 16" square. One of the patterns was called Garden Gala (I think) but I dont know who by and the other is a Marilyn Badger pattern but I dont remember the name except its something WEDGE (because thats the shape of it). I've looked for both of them on the internet but cant find either to give you the link unfortuantely. I know I brought the Marilyn Badger design from Joanne Hoffmans site some while back but I couldn't find it today. So I am very sorry about that.

The Marilyn badger pattern was duplicated and flipped/rotated 4 times to form a full circle and I added circle echo quilting to make the square and I filled the space behind The Garden Gala design with a simple freehand meander. Then for some reason I decided to wash them before making them into the cushions. Unfortunately the designs dont show quite as well as they did pre-washing and the pieces shrunk considerably making the finished cushion come out at 13" square. Obviously there was a seam allowance in the making up but I was hoping the finished pillows would finish at least 15". Its always a good idea to make cushions a full 1" smaller than the pillow form to make them nice and plump and I was expecting to use the 2 16" forms I had on hand. But they were too big so I had to make a mad dash to my local shop to get to 14" forms ... the upshot of this being there was a sale on ... and I came out with a whole bag of extra bits too! Anyway they were delivered yesterday and I just hope they are liked. In the panic I forgot about cards so I recycled some of my little ones artwork but not before taking some photos of it all. I am so pleased I did this. I have always wanted to record my kids achievements like this but I've never managed to do it before. Now I wont feel guilty when those artful beginnings are consigned elsewhere in a few years time!