Peace through Zentangles!

Before I start tonight's story - just to clarify - even though I am slowing down the blogging during December and early January I am not going anywhere - I will still be online and taking and actioning requests - it just might take me a little longer to get back to you or them over there.

I love it when I hear about the different people who get involved with Aussie Heroes.  People of all ages get join us and for all sorts of different reasons.  Tonight you are going to hear about some children from Victoria and how they got involved in the making of a very special quilt.

The ‘Peace’ Quilt

The quilt was created by students in Year 3 and 4 at Bethany Catholic Primary School in Werribee with the help of Kaye, one of our Aussie Hero Friends and one of their teachers.

Kaye wrote - 

"There are around 180 in the learning centre in our school and approximately 50 of those students were involved in this first quilt. Another group are working on a second quilt.

Earlier in the year I had been talking about my involvement with AHQ and, as we believe in being an 'outward facing school' that does things for others beyond ourselves, we thought this would give our students a better understanding that some children in our world are not as lucky as they are and  there are some great Australians who are willing to work very hard to make life better for them. We could then make life for those great Aussies a little brighter by making them a quilt to know we were thinking about them and praying for them.

How it was created: As part of our Body, Mind and Soul Well-being unit of work we teach our students to do 'Zentangles'. You can find the official definition and instructions for completing Zentangles here but it's simply putting a structure around the 'doodles' that we probably all do at various times. 

 The students usually do them on small pieces of paper which they then divide into smaller shapes by drawing curvy lines with a grey lead pencil. 

 They then doodle different patterns to fill each of the spaces, then erase the grey lead lines.

 We decided to see if this would work with fabric pens on fabric. It did - far more effectively than we probably believed it would! 

 We sewed the rows of squares together as they were completed 

 and as the quilt grew, 

 so did the excitement and enthusiasm of the students (and teachers)!

We are all delighted with the finished quilt and will work hard to get the next one done too."

Isn't that just awesome!

Thanks for taking the time to share the info Kaye and for taking the pictures and a very special thank you to all the fabulous students for helping to create those gorgeous squares and for being so cooperative with all the photos.  

I am just so proud to have you all as Aussie Hero Friends.

Till next time...............keep spreading the word and happy stitching AND Zentangling!