Red, White & Blue!

Happy Fourth of July! Thanks for stopping by my blog. Feel free to take some time, look around and make yourself at home! I hope you have set aside at least 5 or 10 minutes (or maybe even an hour) in between the parades, cookouts and firework shows of today to stop by all of the wonderful blogs participating in the blog hop. This is my first hop and I'm super excited to be a part of all of the fun! The full schedule can be found here with Jane. I'm sharing my day with these awesome bloggers:

janesfabrics

A Reformed Heath'n

krislovesfabric

KatieQ

Closet Quilter

I've put together three 12.5 inch blocks for this hop. I hope you like them! These are all of the fabrics I used throughout the 3 blocks. I did add in some white fabrics as well which are not pictured here. 

My favorite fabric is the light blue flowers. It was so pretty and really felt nice. I just bought it as a fat quarter, but now I wish I had more of it. 

Anyway, without further ado, here are my blocks!

Block #1:

This first one is pretty basic - the next two are much more creative. My mom would probably consider this one modern, but it's just strip pieced and went together very quickly. When you get to the bottom of the post, you'll see what this block turned in to. I just like how clean it is. I messed up a little on the measuring, so I had to add the extra 3/4 inch of white on the sides. It worked out nicely though because it added a great edge to the finished project. I might even purposely do this next time!

Block #2:

This block might be my favorite. I've never really liked HSTs, but I've definitely gotten over my fear dislike of them now! I actually cut each triangle separately for this block and sewed them all together on the stretchy bias. (I won't be doing that again...) I designed this block on some graph paper in the hopes that it would kind of look like a firework. I love the spiral motion of it. Sorry for the string tails in the pic, but for some reason I only took one photo of the finished block before I finished it off. To see what this block turned in to, continue reading to the end of the post!

Block #3:

And finally, this is my last block. This one was the most fun to make. Again, I used a ton of HSTs - 216 triangles made into 108 squares. They finish at 1 inch square, so they were a little pesky, but I whipped them into shape. I didn't even do too poorly on the points! I did have some time with my seam ripper on this block, but it wasn't too bad. :) This is also the first block I've ever done any type of applique on. I'm not sure if this really even counts as "applique" since I just stitched near the edge on each star and didn't give them a nice finished edge. (Is that considered or known as something else? Feel free to let me know!) I really wanted the them to have a scrappy look, so this way they'll fray a little bit as the piece gets older. Are you curious to see what I turned this in to? Scroll down to see how it's being used!

Oh, I almost forgot - a GIVEAWAY! 

I thought I should kick off my first blog hop with my first giveaway! 

Up for grabs are these fat quarters:

There's one black, one tan with gold and brown flecks, one green with geometric suns, one "I love cats" bright green print, one turquoise floral and one maroon geometric circle print.

To enter, just leave me a comment below (and make sure that I have easy access to your email to notify you if you win!). I only have 7 followers, including myself, so the odds are in your favor! I'll accept comments through July 12th until 11:59pm - verified by the time stamp left on my blog. Anyone after that time will be too late for the giveaway, but you're still welcome to comment later on. I'll pick the winner the next day (my birthday!) Friday, July 13th by drawing the number of the comment out of a hat. I'll notify the winner by email. The giveaway is open internationally, so everyone's welcome to join in!


Now, as promised, here's how I put all three blocks to good use!

Basic block #1 turned into a 12 inch throw pillow. I gave this pillow away to a "Package Pal" along with some other goodies. I'll post about that later on in the month, so come back and see what else I sent along. I gave it an envelope backing so the recipient can easily take out the pillow form and wash the case. I used my favorite blue floral fabric on the back since it both looks and feels great! Now I'm starting to think I need to make a new case for all of the pillows on our couch. We have at least 7, maybe more, all in fall colors, and I think they need a face lift. I probably won't cover them in red, white and blue, but this may be another project to add to my ever-growing list of to-dos.

Block #2 turned into a 12 inch trivet/pot holder/table centerpiece. I gave it a double thickness of batting, and quilted around the edges of each spiral arm. I thought I'd use it while camping as a pot holder since kettles and pots over a fire are usually very large and get super hot very quickly. I can also use it as a trivet on my table under a casserole dish or a larger pot.

It also works great as a little centerpiece. I don't have a very large table, so it fits perfectly and holds my napkins, salt and pepper very nicely.

Block #3 turned into a decoration for my apartment's front door. I needed to get rid of the wintery-looking wreath out there anyway, so this was a great excuse to change it up! I made the hanger out of ribbon and secured it with pins on the back. I made the star bunting on the bottom out of scrapbook paper and used some quilting thread to secure it to the block. It says "Let Freedom Ring" - one word on each star. I thought I might use this block as a table centerpiece as well, so I didn't want to permanently attach the hanger or the bunting, just in case.

For the quilting, I hand stitched around the stars. (This was my first attempt at hand stitching, and I really need to work on being more consistent!) It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was nice to do some handwork. In the stripes, I used my walking foot to echo the zig-zag pattern in the white stripes and left the red stripes all big and puffy. All in all I think it turned out pretty nice!

So, that concludes my stop along the blog hop. Make sure to check out all the rest of the participating blogs and have a great time seeing all of the creativity with red, white and blue! Happy crafting!