Sixth graders start quilt project

Sisters sixth graders will learn quilting from scratch as they create a quilt for next year's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.

This is the second year the sixth grade class has produced a quilt for the show.

Susan Mitchell an experienced quilting teacher and parent assistant on the first quilt, will serve as coordinator of this year's project .

"I'll work with sixth grade teachers Carol Packard, Heidi Smith, and Wes Estvold in organizing the project so that the students will learn quilt making from scratch," Mitchell said. "This fall, the students will learn the basics of quilt making during a two-hour practice session in which they will divide squares drawn on white paper into two triangles, one of which they will color in their choice of yellow, green, red, or blue."

For the next step, Mitchell will give the students in each class a different group of five or six geometric designs from which they can select one "to play with." By altering the configuration of the white and colored paper triangles within a square, they can come up with designs.

Those to be used in the final quilt pattern will be chosen by their votes.

Next spring, during eight classroom sessions, the students will stitch a small piece of their art work and embroider their names on the fabric of their completed squares.

"Our plan," Mitchell said, "is to lay the squares out on the gym floor, where they will be basted together in the overall pattern. We hope that for this part of the project, we will have help from volunteers and interested students. "From production of the quilt, the students will learn the concept of geometry, color combinations, and the type of hand stitching required for quilting."

In addition to doing the preparatory work of cutting the paper blocks and the fabric for the quilt's squares, Mitchell will do the finish work of applying the quilt's batting and backing. She said she will also need assistance for that phase.

Credit for the first quilt project is owed to sixth-grade teacher Carol Packard.

"I got the idea after visiting the 1997 Sisters Quilt Show," Packard said. "I saw a number of quilts entered by students from other schools, but none from Sisters schools."

Completion of the quilt was accomplished with the assistance of experienced quilter, Laurel Stout; with the efforts of parents' and volunteers and with discounted fabrics from The Stitchin' Post.

For this second quilt, one parent has already donated needles and thread. Mitchell said that she will welcome any other contributions of materials.

"We hope that with the display of this quilt in the 1999 Quilt Show, the project will become an annual event for the sixth-grade students," Mitchell said.

A registered nurse, certified in acupuncture, Mitchell is an on-call volunteer with the Redmond-Sisters Hospice.

For further information, call 549-1908, or 549-8981.