Mother's Day Quilt

Happy Mother's Day to all the hardworking mom's out there! :)  You truly have the most difficult job in the world!

I'm going to be taking a break from my formal wear series right now to share one of my favorite projects in honor of Mother's Day.

Last year, my sister and I worked together to sew a very special quilt for our mom.

My mom had been saving t-shirts for years from things we were involved in. My sister and I collected all of these and refurbished them into this quilt. It has everything from VBS shirts to school shirts, sports jerseys to vacation destinations and now they can be easily enjoyed, instead of being stuffed into a box for 'someday.'

I have to honest with you, I kind of hate quilting, however this was easily one of my favorites, despite it being relatively challenging. The hardest parts were incorporating the massive amount of clothing, and matching up quilt blocks from t-shirts we wore before we could walk, to t-shirts we purchased as adults. For several things I kind of appliqued the graphic part of he shirt onto a background from another t-shirt, or combined two or three shirts into one block. The t-shirt material results in a very soft quilt that is certainly filled with memories. :)

I was also super nervous that the whole thing would go south and my mom would just wind up being really ticked that we cut up all our t-shirts. Luckily, everything was smooth sailing, and she wound up loving it! :)

What crafty things have you done for your mom?

~Farm Girl Teacher

Refurbished Rocking Chair

Growing up I was convinced that every teacher needs a rocking chair! I vividly remember Ms. Sample's wooden rocking chair, there were certainly many wonderful memories there including read-alouds of my favorite stories, calender math every morning, and show-and-tell. (She didn't call it that, but I can't remember what it was called. It was pretty cool though, each week a different student got to do the calender in the morning and share things about themselves.) It was awesome getting to stand in front of class that day in my red tights and get the morning started! :)

Unfortunately a rocking chair is one of the pieces of furniture I was missing. Luckily a teacher at my mom's school was changing careers and asked Momma if she knew anyone looking for a rocking chair! It was well loved, to the point where the seat had busted through but I knew with a little handiwork it would look good as new for the next generation to love. :)

As you can see the paint is chipped a bit and a few screws were coming loose (haha, clearly a sign it was meant for me!) The overall structure of the rocking chair was actually really pretty, I particularly liked the runners. Over the course of about a week I fixed it up and I'm proud to say it has gotten plenty of use already in my class....

I started by ripping out the old seat and reinstalling a plywood one I'd cut based on a template I made from a piece of cardboard. (Let's face it, my dad cut the corners because my saw work was a little wonky...but I did everything else, I promise!)

Afterwards I tightened some of the screws that had worked their way out from normal use and sanded the old paint in the areas where it was chipping. Then I primed the rocking chair once, and gave it two coats of paint. This color is actually called, "Biltmore" one of our family's favorite vacation destinations! :)

Unfortunately the seat was still a little rough so I added a cushion and, viola, my very own rocking chair! :) So far I've mostly used it when reading "A Land Remembered" to the class. The students also take turns sitting in it during silent reading. I was worried they'd fight over it but they've been particularly considerate with each other about taking turns! They make me so proud sometimes. :)

Enjoy your Wednesday!

~Farm Girl Teacher