This is my donation quilt for Quilts of Valor. Quilts of Valor provides quilts to veterans of United States military service. This is the website if you're interested in donating a quilt. http://www.qovf.org/
I also made this quilt in order to compete in a Patriotic Quilt Challenge in the guild that I am a member of. (And I Won! :) )
I did not follow a specific design for this quilt - I kind of made it up as I went along.
In my stash I had a bunch of patriotic charm packs. I'll take this opportunity that to admit that I have a charm pack problem. I have an entire box of them, waiting to be used. Most of them I purchased as daily deals from Missouri Star Quilt Company or Fat Quarter Shop. Needless to say, I've cut myself off (at least until I use some of them).
I found the pattern for the star blocks on pinterest.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465630048957792963/
First, I separated all the charm pack blocks and arranged them so there wouldn't be any repeating fabrics within one block and so that they would be evenly distributed throughout (text, stripes, stars, etc). Sorry, my OCD is showing.
I started assembling the blocks and ran into a few issues. Firstly, I had a white solid charm pack that I was going to use for all the star bits, but realized that the method used to make the triangular parts ended up wasting a lot of fabric in the charm packs. I HATE WASTING FABRIC. So I used the charm pack squares for the center square and cut the triangular pieces out of some kona white that I had lying around.
Problem two - when assembling the squares, they weren't lining up correctly. So, I measured the charm packs (you know, what I should have done first), and found that they were not all the same size. Insert annoyed emoji here. So I went back and trimmed the squares to the 2.5 inches square that they lied about being and finally was able to successfully put the star squares together.
For the stripe squares, I did the same thing - laid out the red squares so there were no repeats within a square, no polka dots or stripes touching, excuse me ma'am, your OCD is showing again...
I cut the red and white squares in half and then sewed them together. I made these blocks a little bigger than I had to because I figured it would be easier to trim them down after I squared the star blocks.
After these squares were complete (5 blue stars, 4 red and white stripes), I sewed them all together.
Then it was time to figure out how to make this square into a rectangular 60"x80" quilt needed to meet the requirements for Quilts of Valor.
I started by putting a red trim around the whole thing. But...I didn't buy enough red fabric, so I found white fabric with blue stars that I had laying around (good luck for me) and made them into cornerstones so I wouldn't have to go back to the store. Did I mention that I didn't figure out I didn't have enough fabric to go all the way around before I sewed it on? Yeah. I spent some time with Jack-the-seam-ripper on that one.
Finally, it was time to turn this into a rectangle, so I added this AWESOME red, white, and blue fabric to two sides of the square.
Then, I added a blue border all the way around the rectangle. Here is a picture of the completed quilt top.
For the back, I used this technique that someone told me about in the quilt shop, where you fold the fabric in half longways, sew along the binding side, then cut the fabric up the long side. Poof, instant backing fabric!
I sandwiched the quilt and started quilting. Originally, I wanted to quilt marching blue stars on the red and white squares and red stripes on the blue squares. However, I couldn't get the stars to look right, so I sewed asterisk-style stars on the striped blocks, sewing lines down the centers of the squares in both directions and connecting diagonal corners. I sewed stripes on the blue star squares, as planned.
Red Quilting on Blue Star Square
Blue Quilting on Red Striped Square
Here are some other quilted elements...nothing fancy, just simple stuff. (I'm not brave enough to try anything really complicated yet...).
Stripes going the opposite direction of the print.
More stars and stripes
I binded the quilt in the same striped fabric, which contrasted nicely with the blue border.
I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out. I really made it up as I went along and hoped for the best.
As soon as I make a label for it, I will be sending it off to a veteran in appreciate of their service of the country, hopefully in time for Christmas.
