Project Quilting 10.2 Red, White and Blue - Patriotic Windmills

I totally surprised myself this week and got my project done early on!  When I saw the challenge for the week I knew right away that I would work on my bag full of patriotic fabrics.  I'm not too sure why all my patriotic fabrics are stored this way, I think it was a remnant from a prior project and I thought I would use them again, but I really haven't. 

First of all I dumped out the whole bag and pulled out the pieces that had other colors in them.  I came upon a bunch of pieces from demonstrating a disappearing windmill block for quilt guild several years ago.  So I sewed those all together to make the center of my quilt.

Well, that looks pretty good!  How about a border or two?  I had a couple nice size pieces that would make good borders.

Hmm.  This one's been hanging around for a while, hasn't it?

Before you know it, I had a nice size top ready for quilting.  At this point, I decided to sew together more bits and pieces for a back.  Simply in the interest of reducing the amount of fabric in that bag, you know.

I used some Hobb's natural cotton, and a spool of Aurifil Thread and quilted it up in an afternoon.
I wanted red for the binding, but ended up settling for the blue with silver stars.  That got stitched down with blue Aurifil.

You can see the stars and loops better on the back.

Those two four patch squares were part of those demo pieces, too!  Nice that I got all of those old demo pieces used up finally!

Patriotic Windmills measures 43 x 43 inches and is for sale in my Etsy shop!  Made by me (Pamela) here in Coos Bay, Oregon. 

Thanks to Kim for another great challenge, make sure you stop by after tomorrow morning and vote for your favorite!

See the rest of the challenge pieces here...

Running Around

Ha - in more ways than one today was a running day.  Thursday mornings my husband and I go out and get some exercise by doing about a half hour of running and walking at the high school track.  We run on the field because it's easier on our bodies.  I guess we're getting old enough to be worried about those sorts of things....but it's good exercise and we enjoy doing it together.

After that it was home for breakfast, a shower and I was running off to the quilt shop to help finish getting ready for a big sale that is starting tomorrow.  I got to help a customer choose fabric for the quilt she is making using the block of the month I am doing for the shop.  I was very pleased that she had made a block from the current months pattern and said she could follow my instructions to make her first paper pieced block!  Woohoo!  I was really stressing over whether a beginner could follow them well enough to actually understand how to do paper foundation piecing, so I was thrilled that she did it.

Home for lunch, relaxed and did some reading this afternoon.  Fixed dinner and then ran off again!  To a quilt guild meeting.  So fun!  We had four different demos going at once and we all rotated around to the different ones.  One was a cute appliqued pumpkin nametag.  Another was a microwavable bowl holder (which could also serve as an ice cream bowl cozy).  I made a cute little finger pincushion at a different one, and the last was for two color binding.  Since I got there late I ended up at a table by myself, but was joined by a new member.  The funny thing is we both have long hair and were wearing it in similar styles - we were asked several times if we were sisters :)  So I have a new quilting sister now!  I volunteered to make three blocks for our raffle quilt for 2014, so that will be fun.

This is the quilt I brought for Show and Tell -

I made this as one of my Project Quilting challenges this year.  The challenge was to make a quilt with a square in a square block.  I added to the challenge by making it all from stash.  Even the back - 

Oops - sorry it's sideways!  Anyway - I love the way the back came out!  If I had more time I would have made it even bigger and combined the back with the front, but I needed to finish it by the deadline.  I do think I will add more quilting to it, though.  

After all the RUNNING around today....I'm ready for bed!  Time for some rest so I can do some sewing tomorrow.