Karen at Franklin Library has been a huge supporter of quilting for the troops, for several years she has sent huge amounts of care packages out and coordinated many, many activities to honor our service men and women. One of the projects she has going on is a quilt challenge and Exhibit.

Honoring our Defenders of the flag
Quilts of Honor Flag Day Quilt Challenge and Exhibit
May 17 (Armed Forces Day) - June 14 (Flag Day), 2014 at the
Franklin Public Library, 9151 W. Loomis Rd. Franklin, Wi

So, my quilting buddy and I each picked up a challenge bag.  Of course my buddy already finished her quilt.  ( she reminds me of the ever ready bunny).  Here is her quilt.

In the kit you get 2 yards of fabric, no pattern, and in order to have it hang in the Exhibit it has to be no larger than 50 x 60.  And you have to use at least 50% of each fabric to be considered.  Here are the fabrics in my kit. (by the way my quilt buddy Sue picked out this kit for me).

I started by measuring my pieces they were 18 by 42, I decided to cut them in to 9 inch squares, the above photo is all that is left after I cut my blocks, I am going to figure out how to use these up in the borders.  My goal is to use 100 % of the fabric.  I had to add a couple more neutral fabrics from my stash.  I saw this quilt on youtube and figured it would be a good way to use all the fabric.

I them made quick pinwheels.  by taking a print and a neutral block, placed right sides together. Sew a 1/4 inch seam around all 4 sides. the cut on the diagonal, press and sew the pinwheels together.

Now measure your blocks to see what the average size is. Mine are 11 1/8 inches.  divide that by three and cut your blocks ( I know how crazy is this, cutting up your perfectly good blocks.)

I measure from the center seam, I want to cut all 4 sides to make equal pieces.

Oh Oh, they don't look equal to me.  lets turn them to create a new block.

Well, I was defiantly off on my measuring, you can see how you can really play with colors on this idea. Some how I will need to figure out how to get this to fit in to this quilt top. 

The way I solved the measuring issue is to iron the blocks into 3rds.

 

 



The trick for me was to not iron over the lines when I ironed the second side.

here you can clearly see my cutting lines.

Cutting more blocks and stacking them so I can assembly line sew.

This is how the block SHOULD look when sewed together.

Now that looks better.

See ya.

Feb 25, 2014  What's been happening here

Wow, it has been a while since I posted.  In case you are wondering were I have been, here is the readers digest version. Last Feb I moved to Minnesota for 3 months for work,  Moved back home and started working a new job in November.  For those of you looking for work, it is tough out there, but stay POSITIVE it will all work out.

Now back to quilting.  In the last post I had run out of the brown crackle fabric for the sashing, here is the finished quilt.

Thanks for looking.  Have a awesome day.