Another UFO ~ Flag Quilt

 A few days ago the urge struck to start digging through some boxes stashed away in one of the Studio cabinets.  And look what I found.  That's right, another patriotic UFO.  After doing some digging on the blog it seems this one was started about 2 years ago.  You can find the original post here. 

It's my variation of the quilt pattern "Patriotic Rose" by Janet Miller.  

A few changes will make it my own.   I drafted the pattern in EQ7, but I'm sure you can find it by doing a google search if you'd like to make one.

The original plan was for hand applique. BAHAHA!  Change of plans.... In the picture above all the flowers have been turned edge, hand stitched except for the outer pink ring.   As you can see in the picture below I've started the raw edge machine applique on the stars.    Good thing the quilt police don't visit my blog because I'm breaking the unspoken quilty rule of only one type of applique per quilt. 

Now I bet your wondering why my star points are square.  In the picture below you can see the hand appliqued stars on the blue fabric.  Making perfect points was impossible for me, so they look kinda blunt.  I wanted my raw edge stars to look as close to the hand applique as possible, so off with there tips!  This will also keep the tips from fraying when stitched.  And hopefully the different method of applique won't be as noticeable.

~ Lea Anne ~

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Decisions Decisions

Yesterday I spent the day making test pieces for my new quilt design.  A traditional American Rose in the traditional red and pink.  Originally they would have been solid fabrics not prints.  

Working with a traditional pattern made me wonder if we quilters have become too lazy?  Laser cut applique, die cutters, fusible applique, the list could go on and on.  It took one hour for me to cut and pre-assemble the Rose.(and that's with no stitches)  Cutting the small red flower from the large red and did the same with the pink.  You can see how it looks from the back.  Thrifty and less fabric bulk.  Now had I used a die cutter I would have used more fabric and don't forget the fusible, but I'm pretty sure it would have taken less than 15 minutes.

And these stars take about 30 minutes a piece just to cut and press under the edges, no stitching.  Because of the white on blue I had to cut two stars for each one.  One thing I did to speed up the process was to blunt the tips of the stars, points are a pain!  About 8 pm I sat down with the best of intentions.  Thinking that I should be able to finish hand stitching this down while watching TV.  WRONG!  At 10 pm  I had finished 3 stars.  What can I say other than I'm lazy .  Today I'll put the pedal to the medal and finish them on the sewing machine using the invisible machine applique method.  

 In my defense I'm not a total lethargic blob.  It took some thinking and the use of another handy modern tool to line up those stars so perfectly.  EQ7 made the 13 spoke circle, I painstakingly printed and added the longer spokes by using an real pencil and ruler.  

 A longarm circle ruler made the perfect template.  

 So tell me do you think we've become lazy?  Do the quicker applique methods win big prizes at the quilt shows?  Will our quick methods stand up to the test of time?  Should we pay more attention to quality not quantity?  I read that it took Sharon Schambers 4 years to make a quilt.  HOLY MOLY!  Sure I've UFO's that old but not because they are beautifully pieced, it's because I'm to lazy to finish them.  Her quilts are made for show and prizes, I quilt for fun but I would like for some of my quilts to outlast me.   As long as we enjoy what we do it doesn't matter, that's my humble opinion.

~ Lea Anne ~

Border tutorial here

http://rebeccamaedesigns.com/homesweethome/

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