The last time my small group met was Flag Day. I had been cleaning out some quilt magazines and had spotted this Uncle Sam. I thought it an appropriate project for the day.
The one hand is cleverly put in to hold the flag. I have a narrow wall that I can hang this on, so I made three of them:
Do you ever get to the finishing of a project and think, “If I was doing this again, I would….”? I liked that I dressed the Sams differently, but I might have liked the center one reversed to balance the wall hanging. I could have changed it, but I was to lazy to take it apart. I will just imagine that they are marching in formation.
It will be fun to see what the other gals did. We are also doing a different basket block each month. It has been easy to plan as there are so many basket patterns out there.
Some of us went to the Minnesota State Quilt Show in June. It was in Duluth and was a fun city to visit. I found this fun pattern at one of the vendors:
The blue plaid was once a very nice pair of wool dress slacks of mine. Alas the fabric has a new use as I could no longer wear the pants. I will say that it has been hard to hand buttonhole stitch these kids as there as so many fine curves to get the facial features. It will have to be enjoyed from a distance.
At our last gathering Sharon shared a patriotic Quilt of Valor she had finished and was delivering that day to a former co-worker who had served our country in the military. It would be a surprise to him and it will be fun to hear about it at our next gathering.
While at the Walnut Iowa Antique Show I found a child’s set of blocks and patterns. One of the grands has had a fun time working with them.
Recently a quilt has come back to me from a group of hand quilters, Sacred Heart Quilters of WDM. They did a fabulous job.
The appliqué is actually opportunity blocks produced by a company that copied a historical quilt that was discovered several years ago. I happened to see the original quilt on exhibit, so could not resist purchasing the cheater blocks. I did do some “stuff work” on the fake appliqué blocks. I laid batting behind the block. Then used water soluble thread to machine stitch around each figure. Lastly I trimmed the batting away where I did not want the stuff work. I asked the hand quilters to put quilting stitches very near my machine stitches.
Once I had the binding attached, I soaked the entire quilt in cold water in my washing machine. I added a couple color catcher sheets to the water. After 20-30 minutes I used the spin cycle to remove the water. (I did not use the agitation of the machine.) After the spin cycle I laid the quilt out to be sure all blue marking had been removed by the water. Once this was confirmed, I put the quilt in the dryer for 10 minutes. Then I laid it out on table covered with bath towels. Over night the quilt finished drying. Now all the quilting really showed!
For the batting I used 100% wool. Hand quilters love to work with it and it really shows off their hard work.
I trust that you enjoyed a great patriotic celebration with family and friends, marge
americanschoolgirlsquilt 