‘Bluey’ a True Blue Patriotic Quilt
This is one of my favourite quilts. I can almost hear you thinking to yourself that they are all my favourites! This quilt is a complete bonus project made from left over units and pieces of backing from other quilts that I had made. These fabrics were some of the first quilting fabric pre-cuts that I bought so I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.
When I first started quilting I saw something on YouTube about making a HST (half square triangle) by using 2 squares the same size and stitching ‘corner to corner’ then cutting away the excess fabric. This is one way, but you end up with a smaller HST for every HST that you need for the quilt top! WOW! That is a lot of spare HST units. What do you do with all these scraps if you can’t throw them away?
The answer for me was to make each one into a HST and collect them all until I had enough to work with. I used all the HSTs as well as a heap of log cabin blocks that I had made to make a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ quilt and this is the result.
On the whole this was a very rewarding project. Lots of math and calculations were required to get all the blocks to work together. It is not a ‘pretty’ quilt but then beauty can be over-rated in my opinion as it is somehow quietly comforting in its traditional patchwork appearance. My mother was visiting and is a great fan of my quilts. She named this one ‘Bluey’ and I knew exactly which quilt she was referring to (I have a few quilts at my place!) so the name stuck.
I love all the American patriotic quilts but they don’t quite translate for other countries like Australia, even though our flag colours are also Red, White and Blue. For me, this quilt is an Australian ‘True Blue’ quilt with our colours but also our melting-pot mix of shapes and sizes that make up our great country.
That a wrap from me. As always, I will add any image I have of old 'Bluey’ in the gallery.
Have a great day, why not think about any spare blocks you have that are a similar colour and see what you can make. Most of all — happy quilting!
