A customer recently inquired about purchasing the small “Made in America” quilt that I created for American Made Brand’s “Tiny Quilt Challenge”. This little quilt has been touring and will be busy until sometime in 2017. You can view a virtual tour of this exhibit here.
So, I offered to make another, similar quilt for her. This time I took a few photos of the process to show you how I created “Made in America.2″
I began with a wonky star block, using 2.5” charm squares. Various blues and whites give a little variety to the colors.
Next, I began creating the stripes using several reds and whites for variety. Basically, I just cut a line with my rotary cutter. I laid this on another strip (right sides up) and used the first cutting line as my guide to cut the next piece.
I continued this process creating the short stripes section and the long stripes section. Then I just cut the three sections in a way that would allow them to fit together.
The last thing I did was to add a border of white around the flag, leaving extra room for trimming after quilting.
The white stripes were quilted with dense machine quilting, allowing the red stripes to stand out.
The white star was hand quilted using a variegated white perle cotton #12.
I used a single, straight fold binding to reduce the thickness since this quilt will be framed.
As I put the final stitches in this little flag, my thoughts turned to Memorial Day, a day of honor and remembrance.
penny lane quilts 
I do really like how the dense quilting in the white lets the red stand out; it even gives depth and motion to the quilt like a flag waving in the wind.
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I didn’t know the original quilt was touring. Congratulations!
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The exhibit debuted at Road to California last January, but there are plans for several more shows before they are returned. Happy trails!
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I love the details you’ve included in this quilt – the different shades of blue, the handstitching and the matchstick quilting – everything works together nicely!
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This is so sweet! I really love the wonky star with the wavy stripes. The hand quilting adds so much detail. I keep wanting to try adding some hand quilting to my quilts, but I’m just not sure I’m up to the extra work. 😉 Looks beautiful!
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Marla, I love this! Congratulations on your quilt(s) being chosen to travel! You explained the curved piecing perfectly! Well done!
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I love its simplicity.
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I love this quilt with the curved stripes and the great hand quilting!
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This is beautiful – I really love the hand stitching, it makes it look so special. I really like the idea of using slightly different shades of colour too, what a great idea!
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Thank you so much! Hand quilting is my favorite way to finish a quilt. It always seems a bit more personal than the stitching I do on my machine, and it’s way more relaxing for me!
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