Kindergarten Rest Mat

For kindergarten, one item requested for school is a towel for rest time. I asked my daughter if she wanted to bring a towel or a blanket. She suggested a blanket with fabric of things she likes.  I loved the idea and started looking through my fabric stash.  I found quite a few, but also wanted to buy some new prints such as Barbie and more princess. Many of the prints have additional meaning or were used in other projects.

I started cutting the prints into strips of at least 5.5" long and 2-3" wide. Once assembled, I cut them down to 5". I thought of this design as wonky coins, but then made them into a rectangle not just stacked. I had turquoise for the background and borders. My goal was to make it the same size as a small beach towel. Once I put together the strips, I saw I had extra space at the top and bottom. My kids suggested making the top bigger and appliquéing Kessa's name at the top. 

I loved putting the prints together and working on this quilt. I haven't done much sewing lately and it was great to get into a new project. I decided to do wavy lines across the quilt and like the effect. I was careful to go around the princess' faces and other prints I fussy cut. 

For the binding, I used 2.5" strips for the binding and think I should experiment with 2.25" the next time I make a quilt. Part of the problem with this one was I was sewing on the binding with a sore wrist and didn't stay at 1/4" perfectly. My wrist started hurting during the quilting of the wavy lines. 

For the most part, this was a one day project. Those are my favorite kind of days. This day was unique in that I had plans for three parts of the day and everything was canceled. And somehow the kids didn't need me much either. I had done most of the cutting a different day and I finished up the binding the next morning.