Blogger's Quilt Festival - Stars and Stripes

The minute I saw the announcement about this on Nicolette's blog (see post below this one), I knew which quilt I was going to show.

When I started quilting some years ago, I read about denim quilts and just had to make one. I only had my old hand crank sewing machine, some wooden templates made up for me by a friend, a proper rotary cutter, a cutting mat and not a lot else, let alone "experience". I was so naive I did not know you couldn't mix different fabric weights. What the hell - go with the flow and see what happens! (I didn't know then that that was liberated quilting :-) ) I started cutting up The Old One's jeans that were falling to pieces or too small and came across an old red and white stripped apron which I snapped up. A visit to the fabric shop produced the lovely heavy red and blue fabric and, to me now, that ghastly poly mix with the oak leaves which stretches. I even cut out and sewed on an old Pace Jeans label (do they still make Pace Jeans I wonder? They were my all time favourite - perfect fit!). Halfway through making this we got my new, but cranky (as in temperamental) electric sewing machine with embroidery stitches - woo hoo. You can see where I had fun using the zig zag stitch on some stars I traced onto the fabric. I sewed huge running stitches in the ditch round each block and some of the seams, most of which have since come out. I folded over the backing to create the binding (which surprisingly is still in place). This was meant to hang above our bed as a sort of bed head, but ended up on one of the sofas as a lap quilt/throw for those chilly evenings. I can't get near it. The Young One has taken over that particular sofa and the quilt. We had it on our bed this last winter - not really big enough, but it helped - and we loved the feel of it so much another one has been commissioned to be finished by Winter 2009. All in all - a lot of work and love went into this quilt. I hope as much goes into the next one.