The Very Hungry Caterpillar Teacher Gift Quilt

My A Lovely Year of Finishes June goal was to make and finish the Hungry Caterpillar quilt for Capri’s teacher, Mrs. Ellingson. I’m happy to report that this weekend I completed my goal! The quilt started by me taking a visit to Capri’s classroom and having all the the students put their handprint on a piece of fabric in the shape of a caterpillar.  I had Mrs. Ellingson put her handprint in red to make the head of the caterpillar.  There was one little girl who was sick the day I came in for the handprints.  Luckily we know her and her family so they stopped by the orchard when she was feeling better and we added her right on to the group.  I wrote the kids’ names next to their handprint. I then squared up the caterpillar and knew it was time for borders.  I also knew that it was already plenty wide enough for the place on the wall Mrs. Ellingson wants to hang it so I wanted to go bigger height wise and not width wise. I had a bunch of different ‘Hungry Caterpillar’ fabric prints to use to make the border.  One of the fabrics had strips of both the fruit and the candy/treats the caterpillar eats through.  I thought it would be perfect to put one on top and the other on the bottom… I added just a thin border to each side to finish the framing of the caterpillar.  I debated adding some grass and a sun  – but decided that this was perfect just the way it is – paint splatters and all! Next – I loaded it onto my Janome 1600P with frame and quilted it. I mostly just quilted wavy lines throughout the quilt (oh and I added a butterfly from one of the hungry caterpillar fabrics)using Aurifil 3320 from the Tula Pink collection box.  But to the upper left of the caterpillar I free motioned ‘Mrs. Ellingson’. Under the Caterpillar I wrote – “The Very Hungry Caterpillar: 2013-2014” Once the quilting was done I bound the quilt, added a hanging sleeve and a label right away!  The quilt is complete and ready to be gifted to the teacher from the 20 kids in her class.  I’ll probably bring it in Wednesday as that is when they will be ‘graduating’ from Kindergarten.  I’ll be sure to post a picture of the kids with their teacher!