Claiming my blog

I'm finally getting around to doing this.

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America The Beautiful!

I believe I've been feeling very patriotic lately! Thus, I have dubbed my latest finish...

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain.

For purple mountain majesties,

Above the fruited plain.

America, America

God shed His Grace on Thee, 

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.

God's richest blessings to each and every one!

Flag Day and the Winners!!!

I thought it would be appropriate to announce the winners of my Patriotic Giveaway on Flag Day!!! Thanks to each and everyone of  you for participating and leaving such encouraging comments!

So I corralled the resident cowboy and his trusty black hat!!

And he drew the winners...

Congratulations!! I'll be contacting you to get your mailing information.

I first saw a quilt that Dawn was making from the book "Promenade in a Dutch Garden". She has made hers from vintage Dutch fabrics and it is just lovely! Well, I didn't have Dutch Fabrics, but I did have a charm pack of French General Panier De Fluer, and some coordinating yardage. I down sized the blocks and voila here is my version!! I opted to not use a border, as I didn't have anything in my stash that I liked. I do have some blue that I'm going to use for binding that should frame it nicely. But...how would you quilt it? I don't want to take away from the fabric or the piecing. I'm thinking about just diagonal in the ditch, but...really would like some feedback!

REMEMBER

BLESSINGS

Patriotic Giveaway!

Okay, the girls chose their quilts and I took out a couple for gifts, but I have three left over! So, I felt like it was time to share with all my wonderful blogger friends! You have all inspired me to "quilt outside my little box"!!! What wonderful projects ya'll share!!

So, if you would like a chance to win one of these little quilts, just leave a comment on this post. You don't have to be a follower and I will ship overseas, so everyone is welcome! I will draw for the winners (3) sometime this week (depends upon when I get around to it between my chores and stitching!!)

Be Joyful!

Patriotic Jamboree!

For the past several days, I've worded a post in my head a bunch of times - wondered if I should split into more than one post or just say everything at one time. So...one time it is!

I finished up the two quilts that a customer asked me to make for graduation gifts for two boys. So very simple and functional, but she loved them! (YEAH!!)

Glad to have that little project finished and with a satisfied customer!

Mandie (DD#2) asked me to quilt a lap quilt for her that she was giving as a gift (sorry no photo, but it was a cute scrappy blue/yellow/white chevron quilt). I wanted to try a new all over design, and felt like I needed to practice, so I made up a couple of practice sandwiches and - looked pretty good, but wasn't quite ready to put it on the gift quilt yet, so I got out the patriotic small quilt tops that I made last year and practiced some more!

I thought they turned out pretty good, so got two more and quilted them in "strings of stars".

I thought they turned out even cuter! I was binding them, when Mandie stopped by and she said, "Oh, Mom these are so cute - I want this one!!" Well I can't refuse my daughters, so I thought, okay, I've got quite a bit of some fabric I used for backing on two of the star quilts, I'll make some for the girls.

Here's the backing:

and I dug through my stash and found some red and white scraps and FQs to make a couple of small quilts...well six quilts later I said enough!

But I had SOOOO much fun making these and practicing different FMQ designs and ideas! I did cross hatching, pumpkin seeds, loops, stars and hooked feathers!! I must say I'm HOOKED on hooked feathers!!

They were a lot of fun and I think I'm even getting pretty good at them!

I also make three little flag quilts, too! They measure about 9" X 13" and Mandie wanted one of those too!!

So now the girls have several to choose from and I needed a couple of gifts, so I think I'm set for a bit.

While I was digging through my box of small quilt tops, I found one that I had forgotten about. It was a SAL with Joanne. Her SAL was fun and I loved it, but I wasn't crazy about my fabric choices, but I had it, so I thought I would machine quilt it also (and practice some more feathers - Joanne had used feathers on hers and I liked it so....)

I LIKED it! It turned out better than I thought (if you look close, you will see lots of mistakes - but I did want to so my progress!)

So in closing to quote a character in Marie Bostwick's latest book "Between Heaven and Texas":

"You know what I call a machine quilted, quilt? DONE!!!!"