Scrapbook-ChickADoodle: It's My Turn, Woo Hoo !

Friday, July 6, 2012

It's My Turn, Woo Hoo !

I hope you have been enjoying the Red, White and Blue Blog Hop. I have found sew much inspiration from these amazingly talented quilters! (This is just the beginning, there is LOTS coming in the next few days, so stay tuned!)

I'm new at this and learning "how to" from reading Madame Samm's SewWeQuilt and SewIQuiltNow blogs. She is amazing and has amazing quilters guest blog as well as host these fun hops. I also want to thank all the wonderful quilters who have already participated in this hop. I have found sew many new ideas and I am very excited to try them all!

Now I must tell you we like the patriotic in our house! We have lots of random patriotic things scattered throughout the house from Memorial Day in May until Labor Day in September. (that includes "D day" commemoration June 6th, Flag day June 14th and of course the 4th of July). It's great to have everything patriotic for such a nice long time. We have patriotic kitchen towels and wood wreaths, paper pinwheels and tin watering cans. From wooden Uncle Sam doorhangers and styrofoam hearts to TY babies that represent the Democratic and Republican Parties, to a patriotic dining table, we have a bit of everything.

Which of course made me want to participate in the RWB blog hop.

I have a few blocks to share with you. The first blocks I ever made as a wantobe quilter I sent to a lady who requested blocks for a military quilt. She requested patriotic stars. This is what I sent.

This next block I designed around the fabric I had in my stash. It was leftovers from a placemat project. The original squares were 2 1/2 x 4 1/2. I added 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 squares of white and blue/red stars and a blue/red star border to finish the block. The words around the eagle say "God Bless America, Land that I Love" and the words in the red/white flag stripes are "It's red for love and white for law and blue for the hope that our forefathers saw, of larger liberty"

My inspiration for my next block came from the design wall in my sister's quilt room. I saw this

hanging in her room and loved the design. (She didn't) I asked her if she had a pattern for it and she told me to take it off her wall and keep it. (I guess she doesn't intend to repeat that one!). I knew when the RWB blog hop came about, that I wanted to try that design. (of course being a wantobe, I sometimes get myself in over my head) I chose the fabric, very excited about the colors and the stripes. THEN it dawned on me, I need to rethink the HST sizes because her block is only 9 inch unfinished and I need 12 1/2" unfinished. Ok then, let's go back and try to remember how to do the conversion. Yeah, I think I've got it solved. I started to cut out the HST's. OH MY! you have to be careful! If you aren't, the stripes end up going the wrong way! Glad I caught that before I made a mistake! I had to make a drawing of the block so I would make the squares correctly. I used the "June Tailor Perfect Half-Square and Quarter-Square Triangles" ruler which takes 2 squares of fabric and turns it into 2 HST's. I've used it before and it's terrific. (just takes a bit of planning when there are stripes involved and a design that has the HST's twisting and turning). I am very happy with the way it turned out!

I know many of you hop along in hopes of a giveaway. Unfortunately, until I am a bit better at this, I won't be giving away any of my attempts. I hope to be good enough to do a giveaway some day soon, maybe for the Bowls Blog Hop (coming soon!!). A big THANKS to Madame Samm and Lady Jane for this wonderful, inspirational blog hop. We all owe you a big debt of gratitude for all you do.

Thanks for visiting and be sure to hop over to all the others on the list!

Friday, July 6, 2012

It's My Turn, Woo Hoo !

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