The PLUM banner for the 6th graders at PL elementary

My first job working in a school in the USA was at an elementary school in Parker USA, they have a tradition; the 6th graders design a banner to hang in the school gym commemorating their end of year camp before moving on to middle school. The banners are mostly quilt-like and made by volunteer mums but this year they couldn't find a sewing mum so I volunteered. Here are the previous banners, beginning in 1978!

 
 


 



 

 


The design voted on by the 2013 6th graders:

 The pile of fabrics and thread before I began:

The moose pattern I made, eventually I did decide to lengthen the legs a little.

 He looks okay now that I have cut him out of the brown fabric :)
This quilt represented my first attempt at applique in about 15yrs, so I purchased Wonder Under a double sided iron on interfacing to stick the moose on before sewing due to the size of the moose, he is about 25 inches tall. I learned a lot about the use of this Wonder Under in the process, the adhesive is much stronger than what I had used in my high school sewing class, and it ended up on my iron and my ironing board, I even had to re-cut and iron on a moose because some of the adhesive from my ironing board cover ended up on the presentation side of the moose!!!!

 

Once I had the panel together I was definitely hoping to never see another blanket stitch in my life, I prefer patchwork to applique apparently ;)

 I didn't do any actual quilting I just put the three layers together by sewing on the binding which is just the backing folded over the front. the banner is about 4 foot by 3 foot.
The completed banner will hang in the school gymnasium for years to come.

 The moose has sparkly eyes and a button nose from my button jar, just so I didn't have to do any more blanket stitch applique LOL