Showing posts with label Week Two Road Trip Quilt Along. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week Two Road Trip Quilt Along. Show all posts

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 14 - Rolla, Missouri, Illinois Block

 This is a fun block, you'll get lots of practice making flying geese with this one!


Today's drive took us north, then east to Rolla, Missouri.  It was a pleasant drive, lots of pretty scenery and nice weather.


Beautiful rolling hills, and valleys were most of the views.

A tunnel ahead!  



Different kind of rocks on the side of the road.  Every state really has a different landscape!


Lots of straight stretches of road.


And so many billboards!  This candy store was really trying to get people to visit!  I'll bet every kid begs to stop here!  We managed to resist temptation!  We also saw lots of billboards for a cave, but we already had to cave stops on our agenda, so we didn't go for that adventure either!


When we got to the motel, we realized that my husband had left all of his shirts hanging in the closet in Fort Smith!  Guess we were in a hurry to check out!  This added a few shopping trips to our agenda, since we couldn't get hold of the motel to mail them for a few days.


How about this block for a real adventure?


3 inch block - it's easy to make these Flying Geese using the sew and flip technique.


And the six inch block as well.  Be sure to press toward the medium light geese when sewing them together.



And the nine inch block.  My instructions use a traditional method for cutting and sewing, but if you have a ruler for making them, you can definitely use that!  That feather fabric is fun!  It wouldn't work in a smaller block, but it's definitely great in this size!



I've got the instructions ready for adding the cornerstones and sashing, so you can do that as you go along as well.  It's pretty satisfying to see them together!  This is included in the patterns as well!

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Friday, August 18, 2023

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 13 -Midland Arkansas, Missouri Star Block

Staying ahead with my blocks, we'll be in Arkansas for another day, but this block will be for the state of Missouri, which is next on the list!  This one is Missouri Star,




Our first stop today was to visit the Fort Smith National Cemetery.  My husband's great uncle was a pilot who was shot down during WW2.  We didn't have too much trouble finding the grave and paying our respects.  This was a very nice cemetery with several monuments honoring our veterans.  It was a pleasant day, no more rain and it was pleasantly hot.


The next order of business was to try to find his Great Grandfathers farm.  He was only three when he visited there, and had some recollection, and we had a picture taken many years ago.  We started out at the courthouse, and didn't find anything there, but did find a clue from googling a highway marker on the picture we had.


A statue in Fort Worth caught my eye, so I grabbed a quick photo as we headed out of town!


Our clue was a dead-end, so we decided to go find the cemetery where his great-grandfather was buried.  It doesn't look like it, but it was quite hot out there!


As we were coming into the cemetery, a lady was leaving.  We chatted a bit, and she told us where to look for the grave we wanted.  We showed her a picture of the house we wanted to find, and she said she knew right where it was!  She gave us directions, and told us to watch out for the dog.  The house is unlived in, but apparently is owned by someone in the neighborhood.

My husband remembered a pond behind the house, so we drove, and found that, too!  We were very happy with our success in finding some of his family history.  We loved the area around Midland, it was very serene and peaceful.  If we ever leave Oregon, we might try to find something around here!  


Three inch block - tricky, but you can do it!  For this size, you'll work with sew and flip triangles to make those floating triangles.


Six inch block, looking good!  Sew and flip triangles make this unit as well.  I neglected to add that these triangles should be trimmed to 2 inches in the original version of the instructions.  If you want to download the corrected version, I've added that to the instructions.



 Nine inch block - by now I was well practiced at it!  For this one, you'll use triangles cut to size and construct like the Flying Geese we've already been making.  
Here are some more specific instruction on making this in the three and six inch sizes:


Line up your sewn half square triangle on the right side of the rectangle.  Make sure the dark triangle is pointing to the corner that you will be sewing into.  


Sew on the line, then trim 1/4 (or less on the 3 inch block) from the seam.


Press out toward the pieced triangle, then add the next pieced triangle to the opposite side.


Draw a line across the pieced triangle, then stitch along the line.


Trim and press toward the pressed triangle.


The completed unit will look like this. It looks pretty tricky, but it's really not that hard to sew!

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 12 - Fort Smith Arkansas, Arkansas Crossroads block

Today's block is Arkansas Crossroads.  It is similar to a block we made earlier this week - it's the placement of color that makes it different!  


We enjoyed our stay in El Reno, but now it was time to get on the road again!
 


Today's travel took us almost directly east to Fort Smith, Arkansas.  The highway was pretty busy, but I tried to get some pictures of Oklahoma City as we drove through.


I love seeing the city skylines with the big buildings!  


We ran into some rain as we traveled.


Crossing the Arkansas river.  Almost to Fort Smith!


This beautiful church in the middle of Fort Smith.  We were interested in exploring this area, which is where my husband's great grandfather lived.  We had some detective work ahead to find out where his house was, and we had another spot we wanted to visit, so we knew it would be a good visit!



Three inch block.

Six inch block.


And the 9 inch block

Nice and easy with just a pair of half square triangles.

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 11 - Lawton Oklahoma, Arkansas Star

I love star blocks, so this one was a natural choice.  There were several great blocks for Arkansas, but this was definitely one of my top picks.


Today was a fun day, we drove to Lawton, Oklahom to visit my husband's cousin.  We ended up taking toll road, but it was one of the kind that are supposed to bill you later.  The cousin said he never got a bill for taking that road and not to worry about it.  Well, I wasn't worried, but we did eventually get a bill for driving it!


You can see it was a beautiful day!  We had a lot of fun visiting, and he made us a delicious home-made pizza for lunch.  They had not seen each other for many years, so it was fun for them to catch up with each other, and we got some good information for some places we wanted to visit later on our trip.



Before we got back to our hotel, we stopped to get some cake so we could celebrate my birthday!  It was a fun day, and I enjoyed my cake!  It was a lovely birthday, and fun to celebrate on our trip.

 

This block is very similar to a block we did last week!  Same units, different placement - I think this is a great star block!


The cute mini block!


The six inch block.


And the twelve inch block.  Not a lot of contrast in my four patch, but I think it will be fine.  I love these fabrics!  They were left from a catalog sample I made for Island Batik, the line was Mesa Verde.  I'm happy to be using these fabrics in a fun project!

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 10 - Oklahoma City. Arkansas Traveler Block

I'm working a bit ahead on my blocks because I knew we'd be going to go through multiple states on some days, and wanted to include a block for each state we were in - today's block is Arkansas Traveler, but we were just starting our stay in Oklahoma!

Today we wanted to drive into Oklahoma City to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  This is a memorial commemorating the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. We weren't sure how long we would be there, so we parked on the street and walked over to the entrance.


The entrance to the site was easy to find, and when we walked in, we were sobered by the sight of all the chairs representing the people who died in the bombing.  It was beautiful, but so somber.



We both have vivid memories of the news on this day, and hearing about the search for survivors.  Our youngest daughter was the same age as one of the children, and I remember being so sad for her parents.


We proceeded into the museum and quickly realized we were going to need to put more money into the meter, but were told that there was a parking garage, so moved our truck there and came back so that we could take our time.  It was quite an immersive experience and was very well done. We spent most of the afternoon there, learning about the incident.  When we came out we spent a little more time just walking around and thinking about all that we learned.  


We were glad that we spent the time here, it was a thoughtful afternoon and we learned a lot from it.  

We were impressed at the resiliency and caring of the people that tried to help those that were trapped and injured in the explosion.  The story of the capture of the perpetrator was very interesting, too. After visiting the memorial, we headed toward our hotel back in El Reno, stopping along the way at the Panda Express for dinner. 

 

You'll be happy to know that this block is an easy one!  I love that it looks like spools!  It was simple in all three sizes.


The block made with just four fabrics looked best with two of the medium dark since the light didn't show up enough to bring out the design.  


and the wee 3 inch block is so cute!  I'm sure enjoying these small blocks (yes, I am a bit crazy!)

Purchase and download your pattern here!