Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Happy 4th of July!!!

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I'm so happy to have my new calendar quilt, Flowercrackers! decorating my home this holiday :*)

This is the 6th quilt I've made from Kim Schaefer's Calendar Quilts book, and I still have to finish the August project before I will be finished making all of the ones I really love.  I have used this book of patterns more than any other quilting book I own!

This quilt is made almost completely from scraps too!  Many of the fabrics are pieces left over from my Dear Jane quilt.  I really dug deep into my scrap bins and anything red, cream, or blue was fair game.  I only used yardage for the binding and backing.  That green plaid leaf you see near the bottom is from a recycled men's shirt :*)

I quilted this one very simply, choosing once again to stitch down the applique as I quilted, cutting out that one step and speeding up the finish considerably :)  I always love picking out yummy threads for quilting!!!

For the borders I just did a simple straight stitch following some of the lines, using painter's tape to cross from one section to another in straight lines ....

I did a buttonhole stitch on the star flowers to give them a frame ....

 ..... and a quick straight stitching on the stems and leaves.  I had fun playing with freemotion sloppy-by-design circles around each of the flower centers ....

Deciding on the binding for it was not easy.  I really wanted a nice plaid, but didn't have anything on hand that worked and certainly wasn't going to buy fabric for that!  Kim put blue on her original quilt, but it looked too out of place on mine, and red was too much red all by itself - no clear separation from the quilt because there was so much red in the borders.  So I decided to use one of my favorite binding techniques - a tiny flange of blue to stop and frame the quilt between it and a red binding ...

I love that Debbie Mumm selvedge!!!

Can you see her logo on the very left?  

There's no date on this one, but it's a few years old :*)

I began by stitching down my blue strips all around the quilt, a little less than 1/4" away from the edge....

Then I stitched the red binding strips on top of that using a full 1/4" inch which covered the previous stitching on the blue ....

Don't you just love it when the join lands smack dab on the top of the corner???  Grrrrrr!!!!!  I had to stop, tear out several inches of stitches, cut out the join and start it further back before the corner ....

Next, I machine stitched the binding down by stitching in the ditch between the blue and red ....

I use wonder clips on the sides and very fine pins at those tricky corners to keep the binding in place on the back so it is caught neatly in the stitching.....

I just love the look of this technique and have used it on several projects.

It is very effective at providing a frame for the center of the quilt by that line of color as a stop before the red comes in again in the binding.

The backing is a fun, summery sunflower print on a bright blue sky background .... not at all patriotic, but definitely playful and happy, and I think it complements the quilt nicely :*)

Now I need to get busy on my August calendar quilt!

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This is the first of my Q3 Finish-Along projects to be completed - woohoo!!!!  I'll be linking up with Adrianne at On the Windy Side.

Also linking up with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ... lots of fun happy RED scraps in this one!!!

And I'm happy to finally  have something to link up with the awesomely fun Scraptastic Tuesday!!!!

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I hope you all enjoy the 4th by doing whatever it is that you love most, 

with those whom you love the most -

and that we will all remember the men and women 

who have fought so hard to give us the freedom to do so!!!

.... and please celebrate safely my friends :*)

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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