School holidays started here this week, which means the end of the school year is just behind us. I know that in other countries it is traditional to give teachers thank you gifts at the end of each year, but that is not the tradition here. However, I still like to make something small for the teachers and activity group leaders they boys have guiding them when they leave their care.

Quack! on a covered notebook | Mud, Pies and Pins

The school system here is also different to what many may be used to, with classes keeping the same teacher or teachers for two years before moving on. This year my older son makes such a move as he will be starting 5th class after the holidays. He will keep some of the secondary teachers, but change main teacher. Because of this we only had one gift to make this year.

Quack! on a covered notebook | Mud, Pies and Pins

Usually I would get the boys involved in the gift making but the recent heatwave kept all of us out of the house and ensure that patience levels were at an all-time low. As a result this was very much a last minute, after the heatwave broke, make by me, although my son did give lots of input on the design front. There were three things he told me about his teacher that we decided to include in the design:

  • She used to have a rubber duck collection
  • Her favourite colour is purple
  • She loves to travel.

We decided that a covered notebook would make for a good gift. It is one of our go to projects for gifting as notebooks are always practical and by using moleskine notebooks because they can be easily replaced once the original is full.

Quack! | Mud, Pies and Pins

I felt I had to include some EPP in the design and so I drew up “Quack!”, an EPP pattern for a rubber duck.

Covered notebook | Mud, Pies and Pins

The purple was easily included in the background fabrics, as my son vetoed the idea of a purple duck. We included travelling references in the fabrics we picked for the back and the lining of the cover. Alison Glass’s Sun Print 2018 Compass print in Jam was the perfect choice for the back cover and matched the water like Liberty print we chose for the front. The travel them was carried through to the lining which was the Marcus Brothers Textiles “Old World Map” print.

Covered notebook | Mud, Pies and Pins

I couldn’t resist sewing up a few more Quack! ducks this week as I need a new kindle cover, and what better to adorn it than a little Liberty Duck. I also have a few more summer sewing projects that will look perfect adorned with these little ducks.

Quack! | Mud, Pies and Pins

If you would like to try making your own Quack! duck to applique on to your project of choice then you can downlad the templates here:

The original 4″ pattern does include some tiny beak pieces that are a little on the finicky side to sew, but I have also included the templates for an easier to make 6″ version in the template file.

Happy Sewing!

2 thoughts on “Quack! – The English Paper Pieced Duck

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