More Field Trip Volunteering

Field trip season 2023 has now ended at Davies Manor meaning no more volunteering in that capacity until spring.

Our last two groups were large ones from two different schools, each with five classrooms of second graders (over 100 in each group).

The hand stitching/quilting station is housed in the room above although I moved the rocker out onto the porch to make a bit more room.

Ebullient (a rescued e-Bay quilt top that was beautifully big-stitch hand quilted by Cathy L) goes with me each time to complement the vintage quilts that belong to Davies.

This motley assortment of hoops was where things started in the spring after last November's first unsuccessful attempt to let the children try using a real quilting needle/thread and a floor hoop.

The large eye plastic needles with Perle cotton (doubled) worked far better but there was no provision to cut away errant threads or re-load the hoops after the first wave of students made their hand stitching attempts (we typically have three waves during each field trip).

So the original set of hoops has been retired.

I donated a set of Melissa and Doug wood lacing "cards" to let the children practice "if your thread is on top, then you stitch down - but if your thread is on the bottom, you stitch up" method before using the hooped fabric, needle, and thread.

The response of all ages to this approach has been  wonderful.

"No, try not to do a whip stitch around the outside edge . . . that is what you would use if you were to do appliqué."  

Quickly followed by their question "WHAT'S APPLIQUE!?"  

Clearly I need to add an appliqué sample to my collection for 2024's groups.

I bought a couple of portable storage boxes along with two yards of this semi-loose-weave cream fabric and a dozen 4" hoops so I could pre-cut additional 6" squares and have them ready for reloading.  Based on the most recent field trip, 2 yards will support two large group events.

I also tried adding circles of dots to help the students NOT stitch willy-nilly all over the place.  Happily, they worked VERY well (meaning in the future I need to pre-dot all of the extra squares).

(I plan to add another dozen 4" hoops for next year - reloading takes time away from demonstrating)

I used the same fabric to fill the large wood hoop with a three-layer sample to which I will slowly add my own big stitch spiral for next year's field trip conversations.

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It has been so much fun to watch the responses of the students -  a surprising number of them have someone in their family who sews, a few of the students have done cross stitch, and quite a few of the parent chaperones have added their own family stories or personal experiences to the conversations.  

The ones I enjoy the most though are the students who have never come in contact with hand stitching.  Seeing them try something completely new is priceless.

Yesterday, one girl asked me if I made quilts.  I smiled and said yes.

She asked me if I was really good at it.  I told her I was, but that I use a machine to make mine.

Then she giggled and asked me if I was good enough to make quilts with my eyes shut.

That made everyone in the room laugh . . . 

I'm so glad I agreed to help with these field trips!

Quiltdivajulie

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"Play is the highest form of research."

Albert Einstein

This, That, and More

One of the first projects was to get the binding finished on the brights on black placemats.  

All six are finished - here they are laid out so you can see both the front and the back (turquoise).

We will use these during July and probably August.

I also finished binding the remaining made-from-old-placemats Raskog utility mats.

Younger son claimed the squirrels (big surprise since it was one of his apartment placemats pre-Covid).

These three are in one of the carts in my sewing studio.

The fifth one is in the cart next to my computer downstairs.

I helped out with another field trip at Davies last week.  

This one was for hearing / vision impaired summer camp students ranging from elementary to high school.  

They had such a good time trying to write with walnut ink and quills, playing simple pioneer-ish games, visiting the gardens and chickens, using yarn in finger looms made from sticks and string, making whirligigs (younger son manned that station - he had a blind roommate with a seeing eye dog in college so he was totally comfortable working with the kids), and just being outdoors.

This is the second time I've helped out with the quilting station.  

After the first one last November (COLD!), I talked with the director and we agreed to go with big stitch quilting using individual embroidery hoops, big eye plastic needles and Perle cotton for thread.

The piece in the floor hoop was to illustrate how an actual quilt would be stitched with fine thread, a tiny needle, and smaller stitches. 

The new approach worked MUCH better.

I took my Kwandi quilt so the kids could feel the texture of Perle cotton big stitch quilting.  And during the wait times, I did some big stitch quilting on the loose weave fabric in the large hoop so they could see what to do without too many words of explanation.

There will be more field trips as the summer progresses.  While I don't want to become a full-fledged docent giving tours of the Manor House, I do enjoy helping with the field trips.  

Quiltdivajulie

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"What you do makes a difference.  And you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make." 

Jane Goodall