Stars and Stripes

I've made a few small quilts to hide the none to attractive fireplace in the family room-kitchen.  When I saw the new flag quilt pattern from Thimbleblossoms by Camille, I felt inspired to make another fireplace quilt.  My quilt is based on Camille's but I changed out some measurements to make it fit my space.

I had fat eighth bundles of American Jane fabric on hand.  I had also recently discovered a two yard cut of the cream fabric in a dresser drawer so I was set to go.  The only thing I had to go to the store for was the batting.  The binding was scrappy and made from the remainders of the blue fabric.

The reds, blues, and low volume fabrics came from a couple of American Jane's lines.

So patriotic and fun!

I loved all those different blues.

The piece of cream fabric gave its all for this quilt.  There were literally just a hand full of scraps left.  I wanted to make a sleeve on back to hang the quilt on my tension bar which fits into the fireplace space.  The only big enough piece left was one with the selvedge.  I sewed the top in under the binding and then used the pinholes in the selvedge to stitch it down on the backing.

I cross stitched it down leaving the fringed edge.  So cute!

I found some extra blue fabric to sew down the center of the backing as my quilt was wider than the width of the fabric.  I hand stitched on a label.

These blues were also included in the scrappy binding.  I machine quilted it on my Bernina 750 sewing machine using the long wavy stitch on the flags.

I love this quilt.  It has been up for a week now and next year it will definitely be out by Flag Day in June!