Red White and Blue Blog Hop

Give me a big Whoo-Hoo, it's my turn today. I love patriotic themed quilts and goodies, so it took me only about 2 seconds to agree to design a quilt block for this auspicious occasion. Madame Samm and Jane are two of the most incredible people you will ever want to know. Thank you both for all you do for our blogging community.

Block design     hummm.............  That's a new one to me. I am not proficient with Electric Quilt. OK, I admit, that once I loaded it on my computer, that was the end. I haven't made the time to make friends with the thing. Math is not my strong suit, so that doesn't help me much, so I just jumped in and started chopping up fabrics. Is there really any other way to learn???  :-) 

I started with my favorite basket pattern and added those wonderful pin wheels to make my 12 1/2" square Patriotic Block. If I had a clue what I did, I would share, but really, it was just stitching and chopping off, stitching and chopping off. I know it would make a real block designer want to run with scissors (as far as they could, from me)!  LOL!!  But I managed make it work.  I am NOT a hand appliquer, as you all know fusible is my game, but with this challenge, why not throw in another little element that I am clueless on! After all, it's the American way isn't it?  :-) Or should I say this old, almost senile quilters way!  So I attacked the handle. Results are marginal at best, but heck, it wasn't all that painful, so it just might be something I would consider again. :-)

Since reproducing this thing is out of the question for sure, I chose to bind my block and hang it in my mini stand to celebrate the season.

BUT...
Did I really accomplish what I set out to do???

Not really, so here is a block that I dreamed up after attending a longarm retreat, and best yet, I can actually tell you what I did on this one!  :-)

I named this block the "Sparkling Showcase" block, because it is the perfect block to showcase any of your favorite things in. The 9" square offset in the block is your perfect place to put just about anything you want to show off.

It's perfect for redwork, photographs that have been transfered to fabric, a favorite quilt block, or even your kids art work. With all the fun fabric crayons, and kid friendly paints on the market, you can let them run wild, and have a great memory when it's done. In addition the layout options for the block are endless.

For this one, I went right to my favorite thing,  fusible applique. A quick trip to your search bar will reveal tons of free coloring book pages online, and that's just where this design came from.

You can access this specific design HERE.

But let your fingers do the walking and check out all the sights online yourself.
Here's a few to get you started.

http://www.hellokids.com/r_443/coloring-page/holiday-coloring-pages/4th-of-july-coloring-pages

http://www.colormegood.com/holidays/4thofjulypatriotic.html

http://www.tlsbooks.com/patrioticpuppy.pdf

Sooo...Here is how this block goes together, and pardon the poor diagram.

You will be seeing more on this block coming soon, so stay tuned!

In the mean time...

I'm sure am enjoying seeing what everyone else is up to. Whew, so much talent in blogland! I'm off to peek in on some more sites. Hope you all follow along the route as well. Just think, we are going to have so much inspiration, we will have to celebrate July 4th every day!

Here is todays lineup...
July 9th

Home Designs by Amanda

A Stitch in Time

Karen ~ Briarside Lane

                               Stitching by the Lake

                  Moose Stash Quilting   (that's me)

and you can find the entire schedule by clicking on our logo!

Enjoy!