Bargello Flag Wall Hanging

I started this project from Becky & Me pattern a few years ago. I came across it a couple weeks ago and had a little free time so I decided to finish it.

All of the strips were already cut. I cut them using my QuiltCut2 Fabric Cutting System when I first started the project. I had the stars all sewn together and a few of the red and white strips. I finished sewing all of the strip sets. Then I sub-cut them into the different sizes, again using my QuiltCut2.

I cut all of the strips into the correct segment sizes in less than 5 minutes. Here are all of the cut strip sets.

Next I needed to arrange them on my design wall into a pleasing setting. This is what I came up with. I put pins on each strip to mark where to line up the next strip since everything is staggered and very free form.

Once I had them all sewn together, the whole top was done. Super fast and super easy.

I basted and quilted this little wall hanging. I quilted 50 stars into the star portion of the flag. Then I did some curved lines that follow the red and white stripes. I trimmed the top and bottom so that it had smooth curves.

The binding for this project uses both the red fabric and the blue and white stars. In order for the binding to follow the curves of the flag, it needed to be bias binding. If you want to see a very easy way to cut bias binding check out this earlier blog post. Instead of mitering all of the seams that join the binding you do straight seams where the colors change. I thought it was going to be really tricky to bind this quilt but as you can see it turned out great.

For more information on how to use the QuiltCut2 for Strip Piecing visit this Tutorial. 

One more UFO finished this year. What a great feeling!

Happy Quilting,

Carol

Sew Batik Challenge at NQA

We traveled to the Midwest and East this summer for some quilt shows. One of the shows we did was NQA (National Quilting Association) in Columbus, OH.Our good friends Bruce and Diane from Sew Batik sponsored a challenge at this show. The show had a patriotic theme so that was the theme for the challenge quilts. I have been to a lot of shows with a lot of challenge quilts. These were among the best quilts I have ever seen at a challenge. I want to share them with you here.

Look at all of those star points in the quilt on the top right. 

The quilting on the award winning quilt is amazing. You can see the texture of the extremely close lines of quilting. All of the parts of the fighter jet really stand out because of the way it is quilted.

I like the braided border in the Statue of Liberty quilt. The wine glass has an organza overlay to make it more realistic.

Two of the quilts in this grouping won ribbons. The flag has charms in the center of all of those tiny red squares and there are a total of 50 stars in the blue squares. Here's a close up of that quilt.

Stars and Sunbonnet Sue - What could be more Americana than that?

I love, love, love this mini Storm at Sea. What a great way to take a traditional block and change it up.

Here are a couple very non-traditional entries. The one with the faces probably has the most of the red challenge fabric that isn't a solid piece of any other quilt in the exhibit.

The top right hand quilt is a fun way to celebrate America and stitching, sewing and quilting. There's a pair of scissors, a pincushion and a quilt block in the design.

Quilts of Valor is such a worthwhile cause. It is great to see it represented in the Challenge Quilts.

This quilt incorporated crochet which I thought was very interesting so I wanted to share that detail here.

Isn't that Route 66 quilt fun? We drove along part of that road in our travels this summer. We had some free time one day and drove along a stretch of it in Albuquerque.

This is getting to be a very long post and this is only half of the quilts. I will do a second one with the rest of them soon.

Happy Quilting,

Carol