Red White Blue Quilt

Your eyes are not fooling you – this is a wall hanging I made to celebrate the Fourth of July! Isn’t it awesome? I had to take pictures indoors because the weather, again, is gray and windy.

It measures 17-1/2″ x 26″ and was made with scraps in blue and red. I even used leftover binding from another project, adding another piece of red binding to it to make it all fit.

The quilting is very simple: walking foot with large straight stitches, and free motion quilting on the side triangles.

I thought I would have to raid a quilting friend’s stash of reds and blues, but I had just enough scraps for the foundation pieced star blocks and for the two large red and blue squares. Phew! I am adding these two colors to my shopping list.

I was thinking of the stripes of the American flag and I stitched lines on the corner triangles. I have some major deadlines to meet so the binding was done by machine.

I traced the stars onto Golden Threads paper, pinned them to the quilt, and stitched them with the Bernina‘s quilting foot and smaller stitches.

I got the star motif from the book Free-motion Quilting 1-2-3 by Lori Kennedy (I reviewed it here). This book’s permanent address is in my studio, not on the bookshelf with the other quilting books!

I got the pattern for this wall hanging from the book Oh Glory! by Kathy Flowers for The Patchwork Place. It has 11 projects – large and small – to decorate your house with that Americana touch many of us crave in the summer. Beyond presenting beautiful patterns, this book is a celebration of the bravery, firmness of purpose, and resilience of all who serve in our military.

Although the projects involve traditional blocks, the designs are very original. Take the pillow on the cover of the book, for instance. I love Kathy’s scrappy Dresden plates with the star on the center circle.

All photographs by Brent Kane for Martingale. Used with permission.

“Eldorado”, on page 43, is the pattern I chose for my project. The instructions for foundation piecing had diagrams showing the exact placement of each patch which simplified the process. Her quilting is denser than mine, and you get to see on this post two options for this project: use it as a table topper or a wall hanging, make it scrappy or not, go to town quilting it or keep it simple.

This wall hanging is very unique! Shaped as the ribbon that holds medals and featuring that same motif on the design, it conjures up ceremonies in which soldiers are rewarded for their bravery. What a clever design all around.

On page 9 I found “Songs of Victory”, which very well may be called Stars and Stripes… Gorgeous!

Now you know why I made a Red White and Blue quilt in April! Sure, I have to wait until July to proudly display it – I like being ahead of the game. I am thinking I should make one of these wall hangings for each of my boys. Sure, the book has many great gift ideas, but it would be fun for the whole family to have the same quilt – another way to show one of the many ties that binds us together.

Happy Monday!