Mini Monet | Faith Ringgold

In April, the Mini Monet girls and I studied the work of Faith Ringgold, an artist known for her painted story quilts. We looked at photographs of many of Ms. Ringgold's quilts and talked about what story we thought the quilt might be trying to tell. Then, it was time to create our own story quilts.

Each girl got a 12x12 piece of muslin and they set to work creating a picture story on their square using fabric markers. I originally toyed with the idea of using paint, but I am so glad I did markers. Much easier to for the girls to handle and far less messy.

Once the girls were done creating their picture, I had them tell me the story of their quilt, which I jotted down for the future. Then I had them leave their story squares with me so I could sew strips of fabric around the edges. Once that was done, I stitched their squares to a piece of felt and serged the edges to give it a quilt-like feel. They were far from actual quilts, but they definitely looked the part!

When it came time to do our end of the year art show, I typed and printed each of the girls stories and set them beside the quilts. The quilts and accompanying stories were a huge hit at the art show.