Home » View by Theme » 28+ Black History Month Art Projects and Drawing Ideas for Kids » Gee’s Bend Quilt Art Lesson: How to Make a Paper Quilt Project Tutorial Video
Try this paper quilt collage for a Black History Month art Project. Students can learn about a little about civil rights while trying this lesson inspired by the women of Gee’s Bend.
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The Quilters of Gee’s Bend
This Black History Month art project was inspired by the women of Gee’s Bend, who live in a small and remote black community in Alabama. When the women of this small town began quilting in the 19th century, it arose only from a physical need for warmth. However, over the years they have been credited for actually reinvented of the art form by making hundreds of quilts considered by many to be masterpieces. Quilts from Gee’s Bend have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, theWhitney Museum of American Art, and others. In 2006, the U.S. Postal Service even issued ten commemorative stamps featuring images of Gee’s Bend quilts.
Lessons from a Paper Quilt Project
Quilters from Gee’s Bend start by painstakingly taking apart old clothes by hand so as to use the ENTIRE piece of fabric. To be clear, they didn’t use MOST of it to make something new, they used ALL of it. You can pass on this message to your students by requiring them to use ALL of their paper used to make this collage.
Gee’s Bend and Dr. Martin Luther King
This community also has a pretty fascinating connection to Dr. Martin Luther King. You can read the book “Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend” to find out more. I had no idea this town played they a key role in the civil rights movement too. Amazing people.
Inspiration from students in Germany
This comes from a video that a teacher made with her students in Germany. It looks like they went with a more free form approach, which is fun for older students who are often able to add more details. The overhead shot shows students arranging all their own rectangles to look like one BIG quilt, which was saved in this beautiful digital way. You can see the example HERE. It’s a reminder that sometimes quick video “installations” of art can be as charming as something that is physically put together too!
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Follow Up Project: Color a Gee’s Bend Mural
Now it’s easy to make a classroom mural to celebrate the creative work the Gee’s Bend quilters.
All you need to do is purchase aGee’s Bend Quilt templatefrom my PDF Shop, have each student color a page, and then tape or glue it back together according to included directions.
It makes a special work of art for your classroom, and because everyone takes part, a collaborative experience as well.
Directions to Make a Gee’s Bend Collage
Time needed:1 hour
Gee’s Bend Collage
Teacher Prep: Purchase card stock with a palette of five colors. The background color is cut in half, the rest into panels of 5.5″ x 2.75″
Start with background color and one of each four panels.
Cut panels 3 times to make halves, quarters and eighths.
Cut smallest 1/8 piece two more times to make a 1/16 and 1/32.
To assemble the collage, take the 1/2 size rectangle and make a balanced arrangement. Glue in place with a glue stick.
Take the 1/4 size rectangles and arrange them on top and glue down.
Take the 1/8 size rectangles, arrange and layer and glue.
Next, arrange the 1/16 pieces on the paper and glue.
And finally the 1/32 size pieces. You’re done!
Gee’s Bend Trading Card Art
• Place four background cards on the table and four remaining cards are cut up into strips and squares, etc. Glue to the backgrounds in any arrangement desired. Important: Students must use ALL of their cut up paper. Layers are fine, it just needs to be all used up, just like the Gee’s Bend women did with their clothes.
• Slide each card into a penny sleeve. This will help smooth out all the pieces and add a look of lamination.
• The cards are taped together on the back side with clear scotch tape.
• Each student can keep their own quilt, or the entire class could put theirs together to make a collaborative piece.
Paper piecing is a pretty big deal in the world of quilting, and it's been around for more than 100 years. It's a type of foundation piecing where you sew patches directly onto a template or foundation. This way, you can perfectly replicate portions of a quilt block or an entire quilt.
The Log Cabin block is one of the most well-known and popular of all patchwork patterns. To pioneers traveling West, it symbolized home, warmth, love and security. The center square of the block was done in red to represent the hearth, the focal point of life in a cabin or home.
I think paper piecing appears a lot more difficult than it actually is. There are many very beginner-friendly paper piecing patterns out there that will help you get the basics down and once you're familiar with the basics, it's really easy to move on to the more advanced patterns.
Paper piecing (or PP as I'll refer to it in this post) is a form of patchwork sewing that allows you to create precise, intricate designs with ease. Paper patterns are used as a template, with the fabric assembled and stitched directly onto the paper, piece by piece.
Short answer: yes, that's just fine. Just in case you've heard differently, here's a bit of background: Bed sheets have a reputation for being difficult to quilt through from hand quilters. It makes sense that a high quality, high thread count sheet would be difficult to stitch through by hand.
You can save yourself an easy $10 or more by using scrap batting in a baby quilt. I also use my batting scraps to dust...they work so good! I buy my batting on a large roll when it's 50% and I have coupon for free shipping, so it's cheaper and lasts me a long time.
According to Grace, a woman should make three quilts before she's married: a Tree of Paradise, a Flower Basket, and a Pandora's Box. Although, some versions of this truism replace the Pandora's Box with a Double Wedding Ring quilt.
If you are making your first-ever quilt, start with something small to help you learn the basic techniques. Baby quilts are perfect for beginning quilters! Use one of these tutorials or pick a very basic block (like patchwork squares or half-square triangles) to begin.
First of all, EPP is all about precision! By sewing fabric pieces onto a paper shape, you'll be able to create quilts that are pieced together perfectly every single time. This is especially helpful for quilters who are new to the craft or those who struggle with cutting and piecing accuracy.
Paper Piecing is simply a type of 'Foundation Piecing'. In Paper Piecing a design is drawn directly on a sheet of paper (the foundation), usually a quilt block or part of a design, the fabric patches placed on top of the paper and then stitched in place by sewing machine using the stitch-and-flip method.
English Paper Piecing is a very time consuming technique. Generally, you must pre-cut templates and fabric, and baste fabric to the template before beginning to assemble by hand. Foundation Paper Piecing typically takes less time than an EPP project.The templates are typically larger and the sewing is done by machine.
Introduction: My name is Jeremiah Abshire, I am a outstanding, kind, clever, hilarious, curious, hilarious, outstanding person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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