Flying the Red, White, and Blue

Happy Fourth of July to all my readers in the United States! And a belated Happy Canada Day to any of my Canadian readers. :- )

I'm pleased to report that the biopsy I had done came back clean. It feels like my iron levels have improved since my last post as well. Trying to get back into the doctor's office for a follow up but her other patients keep going into labor and having babies during my appointment times!

I received a lovely thank you note from the ladies at the Alzheimer's Disease Co-operative Study for the last two quilts I sent them. Apparently there will be an ongoing need for patriotic quilts for veterans in the studies so I dug around in my stash to see whether there were any other parts and pieces I could use. Look what I found:

That's not all of it either. (I don't know why the rest of the rows are not in this picture.) These rows were made back in 2002 (or was it 2000?) during a round robin project in my local quilt guild. Most of the rows have a white base but one row went more ivory. I separated it from the group and put it on the design wall with some other parts I found that have ivory in them.

The two rows that are sewn together in the photo above are 36 inches long/wide. ADCS requests lap quilts that are about 40 inches wide. I didn't need any further prompting to get this project underway!

The first thing I did was to frame up those fussy cut panels you see at the top of the design wall above. I wanted something that would mimic the row of tall churn dash blocks at the bottom. Couldn't quite figure out how to put the panels into churn dash frames at the time so I opted for puss in the corner blocks.

Eventually I separated the four friendship star blocks and put them in the corners to act as a framing unit for the composition. You see I found a six inch variable star and another five inch house block too.

I began filling in around the flag and houses blocks with some fussy cut pieces out of an old Debbie Mumm  print. Changed out the background around one of the puss in the corner blocks so it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb, and made another six inch variable star block.

This is what I have now. I've added four inches with a couple of strips on the outside edge through the middle of the quilt and will add those four inches between the friendship star blocks at the top and bottom one way or another. Once I finish filling in the holes this should measure about 40 x 48 inches.

It feels good to be working on this project at this significant time of the year. I'm pleased to be able to make something for one of our older veterans too. There were so  many who came home from service in their day who did not receive the recognition and honors (or even support) they deserved. There will always be improvements to be made but we are still among the most fortunate of citizens on the planet.