Last week, I shared the sad news about my friend’s husband’s sudden death. At a time like this, everyone pulls together to do what they can to ease the pain, and what I do is quilt. My friend has 2 young children; one is a Kindergartener, the other is in 3rd grade. I made them quilts.
On Thursday, I brought fabric and paints to school. I visited the class rooms of my friend’s children, and painted their hands to make handprint quilts. For the little girl, I used pink paint, and had the children print hearts:
Here is a close up of one of the blocks, so you can see the individual hand prints better:
This quilt’s blocks were made by Kindergartners. They printed their names with a fabric pen.
Here is the quilt I made for the 3rd grade boy. I had been in that classroom the prior week, talking about quilts, so the class was quite pleased to be making a comfort quilt for their friend:
Here’s a close up of one of the butterflies:
Again, the children signed their names with a fabric pen. I embellished the hand prints further by adding antennae and a butterfly face with black paint Both quilts were quilted freehand on my longarm quilting machine.
While we’re on the subject of hand print quilts, here’s one I made with a 2nd grade class to celebrate their teacher’s new baby:
It was a bit more complicated, with jungle animals of all sorts:
I loved the elephants and giraffes the best, but there are also zebras and lions. Again, it was freehand quilted on my longarm quilting machine. It’s been loved (and washed!) a lot over the past 3 years, but I think it’s held up pretty well!
Thank you all so very much for your caring comments and emails to me over the past week. I haven’t always replied since I’ve been busy in my studio with these quilts, but your reaching out to me has meant the world!
13 Comments
October 10, 2007 at 5:50 pm
What a wonderful idea!!
October 10, 2007 at 6:40 pm
What a great idea. I once did this with my grandkids for their mom for mothers day but I used their handprints as flowers and appliqued some leaves and quilted in the stems. What a great thing you did for your friend.
October 10, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Susan, the quilts are adorable and I’m sure they will be cherished by the children. And it was a great idea to include their classmates in the project. I’m sure it will mean even more to them to have their classmates hand prints to comfort them. And I imagine it was a good experience for the classmates as well. Good for you for being so thoughtful all around.
October 10, 2007 at 9:20 pm
The handprint quilts for the kids are wonderful and so are you for making them. I’m sure they will treasure them forever.
October 10, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Holy cow woman, do you ever sit still? lol, These are so cute and clever. Your talents are never ending and your thoughtful too! Boy do I feel like a slacker after reading your blog lol. I will take this as a challenge to do a charity quilt this weekend. How am I ever going to get into Heaven when I have to compete with folks like you lol.
You go girl =)
October 11, 2007 at 10:47 am
The quilts are wonderful…I’m sure they will be a treasured comfort.
October 11, 2007 at 11:57 am
Thank you everyone. I plan to bring them to school tomorrow to let the classmates see them, then give them to the children.
As far as me being wonderful (quit laughing, Lynn) I know for a fact that each one of you would have done the same thing! So you all are wonderful, too!
October 14, 2007 at 2:10 pm
What a special gift. These turned out beautifully! I love them.
October 14, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Love your hand blocks for the comfort quilt. What a great idea. I made a hand quilt for a teacher, I certainly never thought to make critters. Well done.
Krishna
October 15, 2007 at 6:17 am
I really love how this turned out Susan. I think it was the perfect present for this hurting family. Hugs, Carla
November 10, 2007 at 9:39 am
I came over to check out your blog from the Yahoo group. I’m always excited to see quilts made with children and these are extraordinarily beautiful, the actual quilt and the sentiment behind making them. Very inspiring.
February 8, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hello – I am searching for a handprint art idea to have the children do at our hospital grand opening, and this is just perfect! I really like the heart hands, can I get details on what fabric you used and what type of fabric paint? also, the easiest way to clean children’s hands?
thanks!
February 10, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] beautiful comfort quilt constructed by Susan of Wild Onion pattern fame. A great example of going directly to fabric with [...]