Tag: July 4th

Freedom!!!

This July 4th, Michael and I have teamed together again to present both quilt and words that honor our defenders of freedom……

We often think of the 4th of July in terms of freedom, and rightly so – our Country’s freedom from oppression, from control by a distant, foreign power intent on exploitation. What we don’t as often remind ourselves of is the cost in lost freedom, lost health, lost lives of men and women who served our country from the 18th Century until now. This quilt of valor reflects the sacrifices from love – represented by the staggered heart blocks – by our service men and women who chose to lose their freedom and go where needed to protect each of us, and their Country. This quilt reminds us of those who returned and those who did not. We wish for no more conflicts, but know that until that Day when peace reigns, there will continue to be those special individuals who place others above themselves by moving into, not out of, danger.

Michael Arnold
Photo by Clément M. on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday…..

Since it is July, let’s throwback to a patriotic quilt that I made in 1995.

For MANY years, I have had a pie safe (built to specifications by a good friend) that has held all of my smaller quilts. I use the top of it to display a vignette for the current month and the “quilt of the month” hangs above that.

These quilts are all about 36 inches wide with most being in a square format.

I started looking for patterns for my “God Bless America” quilt and finally found one in a book that my Mother owned. For the life of me, I can’t find it now but I remember that it was a hardback book that had lots of quilts and patterns in it.

The problem with this pattern was that the quilt would finish at 80 inches square…..way TOO big for my pie safe!!!

So, I cavalierly said “I will just cut the pattern in half”!!!! Little did I know that would involve pieces cut to 3/8’s, 5/8’s and 7/8’s inches, and we all know how much of a pain that can be.

But, I persevered and this quilt was born……

Now don’t look too closely because there are TONS of mistakes!!!

The one memory that I have of making this quilt is that I was having problems with the pedal on my old singer machine, and that at unexpected times, it would just take off and fly. I either had to stomp the pedal really hard or turn it off to get it to stop!!!

Fortunately, back then I was quilting with Monofilament thread so you cannot see the places where it took off and my TINY stitches are stacked on top of one another.

I look forward to July each year so that I can pull this old friend out.

This is my vignette……

….which features pictures of my sweet Dad and some of his WWII papers…… sweet memories all the way around!!!

BQL July Challenge

This is the quilt that I made for the British Quilt List calendar challenge for July. The design was for a bargello quilt and I originally had a hard time thinking of what colors to use. Then I started reflecting that it was a quilt for July and, since I live in the US, maybe I should do red, white and blue!!! So, I pulled out all of my Americana fabrics that have been sitting around for years and started to play.

I was careful to keep all of the stripes running the same direction and especially made sure that the hearts were vertical and not horizontal!!! What I didn’t remember, was that when you do bargello, you sew the strips together and cut across the strip set and re-sew the new strips together. I am sure that you can see where I am headed……I still managed to get the hearts going sideways and the stripes running the wrong direction!!!!

Oh well, I actually liked how the big red, white and blue stripe looks like a firecracker with the firework fabric being the “pop” at the end.

So, as with most things, it all worked out for the best!!!!

I have to add a cute comment here…..in our charity bee, we often take dull-ish fabrics and sew them into large strips and then cross-cut them into 5 strips and “bargello” them to give the quilt a bit more interest. One of our members had never heard the term “bargello” and she thought that we said “Bordello”. So, after a good laugh, we now “bordello” striped quilts that need a pick-me-up!! I guess in that context, the word still works!!!!

Bye for now.

Happy Fourth of July!!!


This is a quilt that I made several years ago to celebrate the month of July.

I have a wall in my entry way that has a special place for 30-36 inch square quilts, and I try to change them each month. I also have pie safe (which holds many of my quilts) that was built especially for that area and I put various nick-knacks on top for each month. Here is a photo of what it looks like this month…..


This quilt was made from a pattern found in a now unknown book, but it was for a 66 inch square quilt, so I cut the dimensions in half to get my finished product.

My biggest memory of this quilt was that my sewing machine was acting up and I spent MUCH of my time re-piecing the areas where there were birds-nests on the back.