Spontaneous Patriotism

It was the 2nd of April and I was sitting with a friend at the American Legion bar while our husbands were downstairs having their monthly meeting.  Discussion turned to the Armed Forces Day event the Legion is sponsoring at Lakeside Bar on May 16th.  My friend was helping to secure donations for the raffle and I asked what kind of things they were looking for.  She said they really could use a red, white and blue wallhanging.  She had thought about asking her aunt, but she's 90.  OK.  I'm in.

The Project Quilting off season challenge for April had just come out, so I took it as a sign.  The challenge was Spontaneous.  I figured I already had spontaneous covered by the way the inspiration happened, but I still wanted to create the quilt in a spontaneous manner.  No pattern.  No sketches.  Just start sewing.  (I have to confess, this falls in with the way I prefer to quilt, but that's another story.)

one

Red, white and blue says stars and stripes to me.  So I dug into my half square triangles.  Most of these are cut offs that I always save.  I took them how they were.  No squaring up all to one size.  I dug some "squares" out of my square drawer.  Yes, I have a square drawer and it includes not only leftover squares, but also rectangular pieces left at the end of a strip that are too small to go in with my regular scraps.

I put the squares and half square triangles together to form friendship stars.

Next step.  Dig into my strips and strings.  I put reds and white together in alternating strips.  I also added one blue strip to each side of my star blocks.  Put it all together in vertical rows. Done.

Finished size is 25" x 34".
Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.