Independence Day Quilt Finish

I'm reaching back into my quilt history to create a record of the quilts I've made in the last year.  I finished my Independence Day quilt about a week after Independence Day in 2011 and it's one of my favorites.

I used this tutorial from Allison at Cluck, Cluck Sew to create the star blocks from various red, white, and blue prints.

I found that there was so much left over fabric from making the points that I was able to make half-square triangles from the left-overs.  4 points = 4 hst = a great pinwheel.  The hst from the second point has an extra little piece from the first point, but the pinwheels still look great.  The best thing: the proportions happen to be 1/3 of the star block. (I'm cursing blogger right now because I can not get these pictures to rotate and don't want to spend any more time on it right now.)

I played with a random layout, fitting the 1/3 size pinwheels in around the stars.  I had a few gaps that were 2/3 size, so I created some random log cabins to fit into those spaces.  In other words, the stars finish at 10.5 inches, the pinwheels finish at 3.5 inches (1/3 the star size) and the log cabins finish at 7 inches (2/3 the star size).

For the quilting, I used a free-motion stipple, but added stars into the mix.  I didn't want the drawn-star look, so I cut out 4 different sizes of stars. I used the biggest size just for the corners and center, but the rest I pinned randomly over the surface of the quilt (after basting), free-motioned my way between the stars and then stitched around the edge of each star template.



I love the way it turned out.

I backed it in a Robert Kaufman print I found at Jo-Anns (gasp, I know, but I loved it). (No rotation again, grrrr.)

And bound in a fun red print.

It has already gotten plenty of use and is one of my favorite quilts so far.