Last Year's Teacher Gifts

I am soooooo far behind that I may never be able keep up.  I have a considerable amount of empathy for the hamster I had as a child these days.  I have been brain-storming and designing teacher gifts (ahead of time for once) with the kids lately.  I then realized  I never even posted about LAST years teacher gifts!  What a slacker I am! I mean really, what DO I do with my time???  So, in an effort to be frugal about this post, they are all going here.  This is going  to be longer than most of my posts but hang in there, it will be mostly pictures. :)

First Up, Mrs. Ferguson's Laptop Case:

This is my youngest boy's first grade teachers.  She was one of those great southern ladies that always had a big smile for you and kind work to say.  My biggest memory of her is going in for a parent-teacher conference and talking about his improvement and behavior in class.  We chatted a bit about his English grade and what not.  Then she pulls out a folder with his math work in it.  She says, and I quote "Oh LORD, baby Jesus! What ever can I say about Jordan and his math work!"  Now you have to hear that said like Julia Sugarbaker and the appropriate head toss and accent.  It was beautiful!  Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad thing, it was actually a good thing.  See, my boy is something of a math wiz, he was doing multiplication (for fun) before starting Kindergarten.  He may be the key to my retirement!

Next Up, Mrs. Mayo's purse:

This is my daughter's second grade teacher.  She also is a sweet woman who really showed her interest in Isabel.  She was the first teacher she had that believed me that she was struggling to understand what she was learning and and suggested that we get her some medication to help her.  She made a complete turn around in the 2nd grade and yesterday brought home a certificate for A-B Honor roll!  Anyway, Isabel saw me making one of these bags and asked if we could make one for her teacher.  She found all the fabrics and helped me put it together.  She kept saying 'It NEEDS to have butterflies and it has to be blue!"

Next up, Mrs. Ferguson's Tree Wall Hanging:

My other daughter was in 5th grade last year.  It was her first year of having more than one teacher.  She LOVED her science teacher.  She was one of those people for her that really helped her see the world in a new way.  She is a self proclaimed tree-hugger!  Aubrey and I decided early in the school year that whatever her gift was, it would have to be a tree!  So we opted to make a wall hanging.  Aubrey took a stack of various green fabrics to school, gave them to her switch class teacher and asked if all the kids would sign a piece with a permanent marker.  Somehow she managed to get all the kids to sign some without Mrs. Ferguson knowing.

Then we took all of those pieces and stitched them to a lining layer.

Once they were stitched down, we cut them out and turned them right way out. and started playing with the placement of them on a 'tree'.

This is what the tree looked like with it was naked.  I simply fused some batik fabric down on a dark and sparkly background.  It looks kind of sad this way doesn't it?

 We, added the leaves by quilting them onto the tree and this was the end result.

I think she liked it. ;)

Oh and a side note, this is a picture of Aubrey getting a prize for being voted 'most likely to be elected president' by her classmates.  The fact that we are politically neutral made this an funny moment.  The irony was not lost on her teacher.

Next up, Mrs Borland's Computer Bag.

Aubrey had a harder time deciding what to make for her math teacher.  She is not nearly as open about things as Mrs. Ferguson.  So we did some spying and asked her other teacher for some hints.  We got  a list of things that she was interested in.  One of those things was gardening and that she liked the color purple. So, we opted for a purple flower set into a computer case like the one I had made for Jordan's teacher.

Did I mention that she had recently survived cancer? Aubrey always has to find a way to ad some sparkle to things so we found this blingy survivor ribbon.

We lined the inside with the same fabric that was the background on Mrs. Ferguson's quilt. Bags always look best with striped handles.

I think she liked it too:

Last Up are the big boys' teachers, aren't my boys handsome?

I had the great experience of going to a Ricky Tim's seminar about a year ago.  ONE of the things that I knew I would have to make was a Convergence Quilt.  It would be the perfect gift for a math teacher, no?  Too bad Mr. Thomspon was their English teacher, LOL.  He was one of those teachers that really stood out though, especially with Jaydin.  He loves to read and Mr. Thompson really opened his mind to new books and ideas, not only that but ideas that were positive and up-building. I knew that he would need a special gift early on in the year.  I showed the boys a picture of this style of quilt and they liked the idea.  I used two pieces of hand dyed fabric and started cutting. I liked it when the middle was done but it just needed something...

I had a few random scraps left over and just started laying them around.  I ended up with this very sort of futuristic deal going on.  I was very happy with how this came out in the end.

 They were very happy to give it to him

Last but not least, Mrs. Tomberlin who was in fact their math teacher.  The boys discovered the awesomeness of Pi last year.  What would be cooler for a math teacher than a computer bag with the Pi symbol on it? Yeah, I couldn't think of anything either.  She always challenged the boys to excel and I appreciate any teacher that goes that extra little bit to make them think!

Well there they are, all 7 of them!  That is a lot of teachers!  This year there are 12 of them!! Needless to say, I need to get to work!!

I hope that all my kids teachers know that they are appreciated and thought of as part of our family structure.  That is why we do this every year!

Mrs. Jackson's Wallhanging

I am not sure what happened with this post. I thought I posted it with all the other teacher gift posts from last school year, but maybe I didn’t….


This is Jordan’s Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Jackson. I have to say she has been one of my favorites! I am so glad that Squish got to have his first school experiences with her. She is a true gem and good hearted person. I mean really, you have to be a certain kind of person to even WANT to be in a room of screaming 5 years olds all day, every day right? Well, she not only does it but she is good at it and gets them to really learn great things. My son will forever be a better person for having her as a chapter of his life, I am sure of it.

He couldn't wait to give it to her.

Quilting Details

As much as possible, I try to include the kids in whatever gifts are made for the teachers as I want the gift to be from them as much as it is a ‘thank you’ gift from me. On a shopping trip one day I had found this Mayfly Mischief fabric by Clothworks. I thought ‘Oh that is soooooo cute! I NEED to make something with that”. But since I try to not buy fabric that doesn’t have a purpose (batiks and stripes not withstanding) I resisted buying it. This was before I had met Mrs. Jackson. She is one of those ‘Dr Seuss’ type of people. Everything has a song or funny poem attached to it and I can just see her owning a Cat in the Hat style hat. That is what this fabric panel reminded me of. So I took Squish to the store with me one day and asked him if he thought she would like it. He said ‘she would LOVE it, can we make her something to put on the wall?’ Good enough for me…I bought the panel as well as enough coordinating fabrics to make something…all thought I didn’t know what yet.

Squish and Mrs. Jackson on graduation day.

What possessed me to just start making half square triangles I am not sure. I HATE making them! I usually love the end results that comes from things made with them but the actual, cutting and sewing and pressing and then trimming that is required makes me cranky. But alas, that is what I did…just whipped up a bunch of them. That morphed into pinwheels, which is one of those things I just love that is sadly made up entirely of half square triangles. So that was that, now I had this big stack of pinwheels…what next? Start with the panel, add some borders, slap on the pinwheels, then some more borders and viola…a wall hanging. Then I realized that I had 2 panels and just about enough blocks to make a second one so guess what? This one has an exact twin. I saved the second one to put in our local quilt show and it ended up in our guild’s calendar.

Jordan with Mrs. Taylor, the classroom assistant teacher.

The quilting was fun too. I am sure there is more quilting than necessary on it but who cares, it is hanging on a wall right? The thread is a beautiful shimmer variegated thread that I had been looking for a home for as well. With lots of loops and more pinwheels and some accenting on the center panel. Over all I am pretty pleased with this one, I hope it finds a good home with Mrs. Jackson.

Jordan and Rodrigo

Matthew, Joradan and DJ

Kinley and Jordan (his first crush)

Mrs. Williams' Duck Wallhanging

Mrs. Williams is 'Mama Duck'

This is Mrs. Williams, she is the other half of my Boy's dynamic duo teacher team.  In fact, she calls Mr. Tracey her 'work husband' and they are really like school parents. They are a true team.  I am pretty sure she has been D's favorite teacher, she on more than one occasion showed how much she cares for him. She calls herself the Mama Duck for a number of reasons one of them is that when she walks down the hallway, all her duckings follow behind her.



So it was easy for the boys to choose a theme for her quilt. They didn't know what to do, just so long as it had a duck on it.  I found a greeting card pattern online for a duck and then added the feet. Using scraps of fabric in shades of blue, I made a scrappy background. I couldn't decide if I wanted the duck to be fluffy or not, I tried it with batting under the yellow fabric to make it look more like a stuffed animal but I wasn't really feeling that look. So we just stuck with a bright shade of yellow and orange minkie. My original plan was to use blue dotted minkie in the border but I didn't really like that either.  I ended up carrying the middle around in the car with me for like a week until I could walk into a fabric store and find borders I like.  I happened to be in Black Mountain and stopped in to see Marti. I just love her shop and I wish I was in the area more often so I could have an excuse to fondle fabric in her store. Anyway...these are the borders we came up with:

The quilting goes like this.  The patchwork center has duck feet.

The duck is blanket stitched by hand.

There is a black filigree bead for the eye.

The outer border has rubber duckies (think Ernie) and daisies in the corners.

I think she liked it. I have my fingers crosses (as well as emails in to the principal) that my Daughter gets these two as teachers next year. ;)

Mr. Tracey's Sudoku Quilt

Mr. Tracey's Teacher Quilt

As you know I have 5 kids, all of them are in Elementary School. Yes, my house is a zoo and I am guy with ugly pants, a whip and a chair.

The school that the monkeys are assigned to was designed for Kindergarten through 5th grade. A few years back the district built a sort of middle school/elementary school for the 5th and 6th grades to take some of the load from the Elementary as well as the Jr High Schools. The kids are sort of eased into the higher grades by having 2 teachers, one for English and Social Studies and another for Math and Science. The school teams up a pair of teachers and they swap kids back and forth. Somehow both of our boys ended up with the same teacher team. I still don't think they know how lucky the were to get the teachers they got.

Can I just say that my kids have has some amazing teachers but I don't think any of them have made as much of an impression on Jay as Mr Tracey. He truly loves what he does and it shows. I am sure that once cannot teach (especially math) unless they truly love the subject. Mr Tracey is a self proclaimed math geek and he has a way of teaching the kids that I am sure non of them have ever said 'when are we EVER going to use this?' Anyway, Jay saw a picture of a Sudoku quilt and (being a math geek himself) thought it was genius!!! Right about this time, the boys found out that not only was Mr Tracey's wife pregnant but that they were doubly blessed with twin girls on the way. As is my tradition to make teacher gifts and I had already made a quilt for Mrs. Penny's baby girl, they boys decided that both the babies should have quilts too. We had already discussed the idea of making something that a math teacher would 'get'. They were on a mission to make matching sudoku quilts in shades of pink and purple. I talked them into making ONE that could be a wall hanging.

So we picked out a few fabrics and he dug out a puzzle book and solved it for me. That became my pattern, which of course I didn't take a picture of for my blog (d'oh). This was a really fun one and I plan to make more of these in the future...maybe the math teachers will get these every year.

'Manly' quilting ;)

Backing

 

Aren't my boys handsome?

Chelsea's Graduation Gift

Satin Lining

Just the right size for magazines.

Hippie Sac? Why yes, I think so.