Winter is the perfect season for curling up in a big warm quilt with your favorite book.
Lakeville Elementary third-graders in teachers Courtney Cooley and Laurie Wittbold’s classes took that idea a step further by turning their favorite books into quilts.
Each class now has its very own ‘Literacy Quilt,? courtesy of former Lakeville social worker and counselor Fern Fosgate.
Students picked their favorite book and drew a picture of the cover on paper using special fabric crayons.
‘They could pick a book they recently read or their all-time favorite. It was up to them,? Cooley said.
Fosgate took the drawings, and using an iron, transferred them onto squares of fabric, which she then machine-sewed together and surrounded with decorative quilting patterns.
Each quilt contains 27 squares representing 27 favorite books plus three additional squares ? one featuring a class picture, one with a photo of Lakeville Elementary and one in the middle that reads, ‘Our favorite books quilt.?
Cooley said the quilts allow ‘students to show their love of books and how important it is to them to read.? The quilts will remain in the classrooms and be enjoyed by students during their time in the reading center, which in Cooley’s classroom includes a large, comfy sofa.
For Fosgate, the quilting project was a chance for her to return to Lakeville Elementary since retiring in June 2004 after 30 years with the school district.
‘This gave me the opportunity to come back to school and be with the kids,? she said.
Fosgate recently started a quilting business out of her Lake Orion home called Long Arm Machine Quilting. For more information call (248) 693-1993 or e-mail Fosgate at fosgatef@comcast.net.