Spell it with Fabric: America

Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure if you saw the blog hop that Moda began last week:  Spell it with Fabric.  I visited the first few blocks but wasn't paying it much mind and then I began to get some ideas.  I revisited the blogs and started downloading the patterns.  Each day Monday through Friday, 3-4 blogs are featured and each one is providing a link for a letter of the alphabet.  As of yesterday, A-R were available, and I'm guessing that S, T, and U are featured today.  If you are interested, you can find the details and all of the links here.   I quickly started playing and could hardly wait for each morning when I could get the next few letters.  It was tough to get through the weekend as there were no new letters.  Can you believe I was looking forward to Monday morning?!

It was even harder to wait as I only needed the "R" to finish the project I decided to make.  I got the R pattern yesterday morning, made it, finished my top, layered, quilted, and bound it in time to take some pictures in the afternoon. 

Since it was a Moda project, I decided to use Moda fabric.  In this case, my favorite designers, Minick and Simpson.  I had some small pieces of large-scale fabrics.  Since I normally make projects with small pieces (and I don't like to cut large-scale fabrics into small bits) these have been languishing for a while waiting for the perfect project!  The background fabric is from Prairie Paisley, and most of the others are from Prairie Paisley II, although there are a few others thrown in the mix. 

I would love to take credit for having the idea of adding the tiny stars, but it wasn't mine.  Bonnie (from Bonnie and Camille fame) did the "C" and had added a tiny star to it.  Since I love stars, I had to play with them, too.  The star pattern didn't come with the letter block pattern, but I remembered that the Countdown to Christmas quilt that was a quilt-along last year by the Temecula Quilt Co had directions to make little 2" finished stars.  They worked perfectly with these blocks, as the letters are made from 2.5" strips. 

The finished quilt is more of a banner.  I hung it outside on my porch for effect.

It finished at about 12" high and 64" long.  I think each letter block finished at 8" wide by 10" high.  I cut 1.5" strips to put between every letter and to frame the entire word.  I haven't stopped with this quilt, though!

I made a J for myself, using some fun, patriotic fabric.  I'll quilt it and bind it in red and it can join my wall of minis.  But I'm still not done!  I have been trying to decided on presents for my young nieces who are taking First Communion, so I'm playing with their names now.  I'll share when I get them done, but I need the V and the X to finish.  I'm making their letters by piecing 2.5" squares, for more of a patchwork look.  It has been lots of fun clicking on the hashtag #spellitwithmoda on Instagram to see what other quilters are doing! 

Have a great day!
JoAnne