A Trip Around the World With Dick and Jane

School is starting soon.  Summer break is coming to an end.  The good news ..... quilting goes on!!!

A friend of mine who is a retired art teacher and an avid quilter made a table square for me.  He (yes! he) found some fabric with  a school theme and the children are, or at least look just like, Dick and Jane from the old reading primer.  I remember learning to read with Dick and Jane.  Over the last couple of years I have found some re-prints of the old Dick and Jane books and have been collecting them for my classroom.  I would love to find an original copy but the fabric in this table square has certainly done the job of sparking childhood memories.

The table square is 42 inches square and will look perfect on the reading table in my classroom.  He used  2½ inch squares and placed them in the Trip Around the World pattern to make the body of the piece.  Six different fabrics were used for the squares.  Starting from the center, the first fabric is white writing paper with cursive practice on it.  Second is a dark country blue with coins and some money amounts written in cents.  Next there is dark green with addition practice followed by a print depicting classroom and playground scenes.  After that, is yellow with addition practice and finally, white with the old-fashioned metal lunch boxes.  Next he added a narrow, ½ inch white-on-white border to frame the piece before adding the 3½ inch outer border of the print showing scenes of the children in the classroom and on the playground.

Usually, I like batting with some loft to it but for this project a very thin batting was used so things can be placed on the table square without tipping over or being unsteady.

I got to quilt this myself and chose a simple meandering.  It turned out very nice.  I wrapped the back around to the front to bind the quilt.

My dog was apparently jealous of the quilt getting its picture taken and had to sit in on the photo session!!!  Believe it or not, the second picture was taken when I told him to smile!!!

This project is perfect for my second grade classroom!  I won't, of course,  be bringing the dog with me.

Happy quilting,
Laurel