HI Everyone!
Well, it's been a while since I blogged. So sorry. But I'm back...at least for a moment! (Please make sure you read to the end of the post for a giveaway opportunity!)
I was recently invited to participate in a blog hop with Paint Brush Studios fabric. I was really excited, because I love their solids.
I don't know if you have tried their solids yet, but if you haven't, you should! They have a very nice hand, kind of silky. I really like how they feel, cut, and sew. Therefore, I was delighted to participate in the blog hop.
These are the fabrics I received:
The colors are: French Blue, River, Patriot,Tomato, Claret, Crimson, and White.
Hmmm....so, now, what to make?
I have been working on trying to sew some of the patterns I already own or to sew from books I own. I recently purchased this book:
There are so many patterns in this book that I want to try, and they all pretty much use solids. If you are wanting to give solids a try, this would be a great source of inspiration for you.
Inside this book is this pattern:
The pattern is called Sweden, by Brigitte Heitland. I love it. I decided I would make a smaller version of this quilt with the fabrics Paint Brush Studios sent me. I decided I'd do all red stripes, but throw in a blue stripe in each block, placed randomly in the block somewhere.
And here is my completed quilt:
I'm calling it Modern Flags. I had a lot of fun piecing it. I quilted it with lots of straight lines in the white spaces. It was really hard to quilt long straight lines on my longarm. I started by by using my channel locks so my longarm would only move horizontally. This was great for making a perfectly straight line, but if your sewing wasn't perfectly straight (and believe it or not, mine wasn't...lol), it was very obvious. So, I switched to using rulers instead. I had a hard time keeping those straight, too. My ruler kept sliding on me. So, my lines are not perfectly straight or perfectly spaced. I just gave up on that and let it be very imperfect. I decided it looks okay, as long as you are riding by on a fast horse. LOL!
My neighbor was gracious enough to allow me to use her beautiful fences and chicken coop to do the photo shoot. I did a scrappy binding. It is mostly the darkest blue, but with shots of the medium red thrown in. In part, that was because I didn't have enough blue, but also because I wanted to have shots of red in the binding.
I am not sure if you can tell from the photo, but I joined the red binding to the blue with a straight seam rather than a diagonal seam, like you usually do when joining binding strips. I did that because I thought it would be more in keeping with all the other straight lines in the quilt. I thought a diagonal line would be very out-of-place on this quilt.
We share a driveway with our neighbors, and I love the bunting my neighbor hung on our gate. I had to get a photo of the quilt there, too. I'm using this quilt as a decoration right inside my front door. It gives a nice patriotic feel to the house as soon as folks walk in, which is great, because we have out-of-town guests arriving today for the holiday. We are so excited to see them.
I hope you like what I did! Thank you to Brigitte Heitland for writing such an awesome pattern, and thank you to Paint Brush Studios for allowing me to play with their fabrics. I just love them.
GIVEAWAY TIME!
This wouldn't be any fun without a giveaway, now, would it?! How would you like to win a set of 7 fat quarters from Paint Brush Studios? They have been so gracious to provide a set of these 7 fat quarters as a giveaway. If you'd like to win your own red, white, and blue fabrics to work with, please leave a comment here on my blog telling me what your favorite way to celebrate the 4th of July is. Leave your comment by midnight on July 6, 2017. I'll draw a name on Friday, July 7, 2017 and announce it here on my blog as well as on my Instagram account. (Check out my account....you'll find me @stephiepeterson. You don't have to follow me to win. I don't like giveaways that require that, myself. I only want you to follow me if you like what you see. If you do, I'd love it if you followed me.)
EDIT: THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THE WINNER WAS KATHY H! CONGRATULATIONS, KATHY! I'VE SENT YOU AN EMAIL. PLEASE SEND ME YOUR MAILING INFORMATION SO I CAN MAKE SURE YOUR PRIZE GETS SENT OUT TO YOU!
Good luck, and Happy 4th of July! I love America...I love all her strengths and warts alike. We live in a great country, and I'm proud to be an American!
Until next time,
Stephanie (AKA Mama Pea)
