A Patriotic Finish

I realized I never shared the flag quilt I finished last month. I have been wanting to make this flag quilt for a couple of years and finally can mark it off my bucket list. 

I just love the colors of this quilt, it's a little modern update on the traditional red, white and blue.

This quilt is definitely not perfect. The aqua plaid fabric was printed soooo crooked that I wasted a lot of fabric trying to find spots of the fabric that were semi-straight. 

And then there is the pleat I found in the backing after the quilt was quilted, trimmed and bound. I was so upset that I didn't see it earlier. It was too late to unstitch and re-quilt that section so I pondered what to do.

Luckily, the pleat was located in the lower corner of the quilt. But it was 15" long! My fix was to cover the pleat with a LARGE label.

I made another flag block and wrote a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance with a permanent marker in the white stripes of the flag. I added borders and pieced in my sew-in tag and a place to date and sign the label. Then I quilted the label to a large fusible fabric interfacing with the fusible side facing away from the label. 

Sewing the fusible interfacing on the back allowed me to fuse the label to the back without having the fabric label glued directly to the quilt back. The fusible also kept the center of the large label from being floppy and loose. After it was fused, I stitched the edges of the label down.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. This quilt was originally going to be a gift but I couldn't gift it knowing that there was that huge mistake hidden by the label. So I'll be keeping it. 

I think I have enough of the red and blue fabric to make more flag blocks but I'll have to find background and an aqua plaid that is straight to make another quilt.

I plan to display this quilt in my entry way, draped on my antique wardrobe. With that in mind, I even made a floral arrangement to coordinate with my quilt. I'll try to share a quilt when I get it all finished.

Happy Quilting!

~Sharla

P.S. I've been bombarded with spam on this site so I have turned off comments for the time being. Contact me through Facebook, Instagram or email. Thanks for understanding!