Mom’s Unfinished Quilts: Stars and Stripes, A Table Quilt

Mom’s Stars and Stripes Table Quilt

| Cindy Anderson

The Stars and Stripes Table Quilt was assembled from 25 blocks, nine of which are stars. Surrounding the outer perimeter is a narrow red border. Protecting the back is a scrappy, pieced backing created from leftover fabrics. This smashing little specimen is the fifth of five quilts I received from my Mom. The first was Pam’s Nine Patch, the second one was the American Flag Picnic Throw, the third was the Harvest Melody Quilt and the fourth was the French Cottage Garden Quilt.

This was one of the easiest quilts to assemble. My Mom had most of the segments already stitched. My main job was to piece the blocks together to form the quilt top. Having so little to do made this one a breeze to work with. To jazz up the quilt I used leftover fabrics to piece together a scrappy quilt back.

To finish it off I quilted this project using a variety of stitch patterns. In the outside border I stitched a continuous, single row of swirls reaching all the way around the entire perimeter

Stars-and-Stripes-Border
Stars and Stripes Border Quilting

Within the body of the quilt is a roaming series of geometric shapes.

Stars-and-Stripes-Table-Quilt-Closeup
Stars and Stripes Table Quilt Quilting
Stars-and-Stripes-Table-Quilt-Quilting-in-Star
Stars and Stripes Table Quilt Quilting

These shapes help to accentuate and unify the quilt’s design.

Stars-and-Stripes-Table-Quilt
Stars and Stripes Table Quilt

I just love the overall appearance and outcome of this table quilt. From the energetic visual impact of the quilt itself to the uniquely created scrappy backing

Stars-and-Stripes-Table-Quilt-Backing
Stars and Stripes Table Quilt Backing

this quilt shines with interest. As you can tell I just love this quilt.

Well, that’s the last of my Mom’s quilts. I’ve taken the time to show her each one of them. Her reaction was, not surprisingly, one of joy. Unfortunately she doesn’t remember starting all of them but that’s the way it goes. I only hope that I can be as alert and active as she is if I reach that age.

Here’s a collage of all five quilts.

American Flag Picnic Blanket
Harvest Melody Quilt Top
French Cottage Garden Quilt Top
Stars and Stripes Table Quilt

Thank you for sharing your time with me! I always look forward to our visits.

logo_101417_2

Day Three

| Cindy Anderson

The Woodland Ridge Retreat is located in a small town in northern Wisconsin. For a small town they offer quite a few amenities. Meals were not included in our stay until Friday evening. Since we were on our own for breakfast we decided to walk the few blocks to the local coffee shop. The temperature outside was brisk but refreshing and the sky was a bright, beautiful blue.

The food as well as the coffee were very delicious. Taking the short jaunt was well worth the effort. Here’s a few photos of the restaurant.

img_1643

 

img_1642

img_1653

 

img_1652

On one of my many trips to my room I just happened to notice the setting sun. Here’s a photo of the view from my window.

img_1645

The quilt chosen for today’s project was this one.

img_1977

Most of the individual components have already been assembled by my Mom so I’m thinking this one may goes as quickly as the nine patch. We all know that reality and perception are often two different things so we’ll see just how quickly it goes.

The pattern is called Stars and Stripes Table Quilt. It was designed by Joan Karagavoorian and found in a magazine. I don’t know what magazine it was because my Mom tore the pages out and none of the pages have the magazine’s name on them.

My Mom’s always been very patriotic so I’m not at all surprised that she chose this one. The quilt has twenty-five blocks, nine of which are stars. All of the star blocks were stitched and ready for a final pressing. Strips for the striped blocks had also been sewn and some of the 10 1/2″ blocks were already cut.

Once I got my bearings I could map out a plan for my approach. First thing I did was check the measurements of the star blocks to verify that they were actually 10 1/2″ square. I was so happy to discover that they were since it’s one of my least favorite blocks to make.

All but one of the nine striped units my Mom had made were 10 1/2″ square. One of them looked like perhaps her ruler had slipped and was badly misshaped. That one will go in my scrap pile. The pattern called for sixteen striped blocks so I had seven left to make. My Mom hadn’t cut and stitched together enough red and tan strips to make all sixteen blocks so I had to do some of that myself. I also had to use my seam ripper to take apart one of the units of ten 40″ strips. My Mom had used the wrong seam allowance. Rather than the required seam allowance of 1/4″ she had used 3/8.

Once all of the components were finished I placed them on the design wall. I moved the star blocks around until I found an arrangement that looked balance, then stitched it all together.

img_1986

Here’s how it looked at the end of the day. All that was left to do was the red border.

Cindy Anderson