Independence Day!

Here in the US today is the Fourth of July, a time for fireworks, a reading of the Declaration of Independence, a barbecue and general relaxing!  I thought I would show you some patriotic themed quilts, first up is this little quilt I made several years ago and have hanging in my upstairs hallway. I brought it into the sewing room for the photography, as you can see it here hanging from the thread rack.

I believe I got this pattern from a TV show. As you can see, it's pretty darn simple, and would be very easy to duplicate without a pattern. I still have a small plastic bin filled with all of the strips I cut for this, there must be enough in there for at least two more. Since I made this I have purchased several yards and fat quarters of more patriotic fabric, so I have quite a stash! You could certainly make several and use as placemats for a patriotic themed table. The strips are cut 1 1/2 inches wide so they finish at 1 inch wide, using the standard piecing seam of 1/4 inch. The quilt is about 16 1/2 inches wide to give it the correct proportions, and the house finishes at 6 inches square. I used scraps of blue for the binding and hanging loops. The house by itself would make a nice potholder, if you're into such things. I generally buy mine at a kitchen store, as I like the ones with silicone strips on them.

Now this is a quilt I made over ten years ago, and has been on my son's bed while he was waiting for the Black and White Log Cabin quilt to be finished. Now that I have it back again, I can show it to you. This was a mystery quilt that a local quilt shop was running. I picked out the fabrics, but am afraid that the flowered fabric doesn't have enough contrast for the friendship stars to show up well against the beige fabric. The very sad part about this quilt is that I had finished the main part of the top and was working on the borders when the terrorists flew the planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. As I was working on a government installation at the time, we were all sent home around 9:30 am Pacific Time. So I worked on designing the borders, all the while glued to the TV watching the horrors unfold. What a terrible day that was.  It gave me a tiny bit of cheer to be working on a red, white and blue quilt at the time, especially as the flowered fabric has a patriotic theme, with an American eagle on it.

I even made a star pillow out of the extra blocks. I always seem to have extra blocks, do others do that, too?

I hope all of you in the US have a wonderful Fourth, and take care with those fireworks! Normally we would be watching from the front yard as it has a good line of site to the show at the local Community Center. Home fireworks are banned throughout most of Southern California, as we are in our dry season and we don't need any fires. But this year we drove to Colorado to see our daughter and granddaughter, and saw the smoke pour from the Rocky Mountains just west of Colorado Springs in the worst fire in the state's history. Luckily, the weather has cooled a bit, and the highs are now in the 90's (from about 104), with a fair amount of cloud cover and occasional rainstorms. All of the fires are pretty much now under control, thank heavens.