Flags and Fireworks

I want to wish Americans a Happy 4th of July where ever they are. We will be attending a picnic at relatives this evening then watching the fireworks that the town puts on. Will be enjoyable I am sure.

I made the quilt in the photo above in 1993 and I named it Flags and Fireworks. It is a small wall hanging, approximately 20" square. It was machine pieced using templates those many years ago and it is hand quilted.

The idea for the quilt came from this book - Quilts Galore by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes called "Triple Star / Sawtooth Star."

They used 12" blocks for the triple star and 6" blocks for the sawtooth star but I drafted the blocks in my Electric Quilt program to be 8" and 4". The setting is similar but different too. I liked the idea of the zig zag on the border so added one to mine too. I used fabric with small flags on it and fussy cut them so the would all be standing upright and centered in the areas where they were pieced.

I do want you to notice that the one small plaid fabric has faded pretty badly. I hung this for years in my house, not in direct light but indirect light but it still faded. The darker paisley fabric in the stars in the corners has faded a little but nothing like the plaid, but the good quality fabric I used in the outside border has not appeared to have faded at all.

Have been thinking of using a pigment marker and touching up the navy in the fabric since there is not a whole lot of it. Has anyone done that and how did it work?

I did get my house de-cluttered yesterday and got all the laundry done with the exception of one load of towels that are going now. It is a good feeling to be able to look around and not see a mess everywhere. I do want you to know I didn't work on dusting and vacuuming though, the rest of it took me the entire day. I got distracted a few times with other things too - sure don't want you to think I was that deep in clutter!

I sat down at the sewing machine for about a half an hour yesterday afternoon to do a little buttonhole stitching on my flower basket. Think a load of laundry got finished so that was the end of that for the day but it was a start and it felt good to sew.

Sitting here thinking about our 4th of July celebrations and wondered if any readers of my blog from other countries have country wide celebrations similar to our 4th of July and how you celebrate. Let me know as I am always interested in finding out about about the lifestyles of others who don't live where I do.

Lynn