Friday, November 13, 2009

Flashback Friday -- U.S. Map Quilt

This quilt, completed a few years back, is a triumph for a few reasons:

#1: I got this cute panel for practically nothing because a very small portion of Canada was cut short. Since it's a U.S. map, that was fine with me!
#2: Even though the colors in the panel are somewhat unique, I still had fabrics in all the same colors on hand!
#3: I pieced the batting from some large batting scraps.
#4: I had the backing fabric on hand too -- little all-over Earths!


That means this quilt was practically freeeeee!!

I quilted it by sewing all the state lines -- great free-motion practice.


One of my favorite parts of this quilt is the border. I free-motion quilted the names of all the states, alphabetically, all the way around. Too fun!

My four-year-old is very interested in the states and where each one is. I'm excited to break this quilt out again and look at it with him!

9 comments:

Melissa said...

I love it! My son is interested in states too. So how did you free quilt the names of the states? Did you draw with some sort of erasable pen first?

Robin (RsIslandCrafts) said...

I love it! When I saw these panels at JoAnn's I just had to make some quilts with them :)

http://rsislandcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/11/weekend-finishes.html

Care said...

Melissa,

I did use a water soluble marker to write in the names, then sewed. It was actually pretty easy, especially since it was right on the border. No rolling and shoving the entire quilt under the arm of the machine to do it! :o)

jovaliquilts said...

It's great! I bought a bunch of those panels and put one on the back of each of my I Spy quilts, but I love the border on yours and the state names stitched in! Definitely worth a quilt of its own. Very cool!

ARTwendy ... said...

Your free motion quilting is inspiring!
I'd love to be able to watch you do this!

Beth said...

I did one of these too - and had a lot of fun free-motion quilting designs on some of the big states (stars in TX for example) but I love your idea of the names around the edge. I used a stars and stripe fabric for the binding.

tantehilde said...

great! i would live to have such a pannel of the world or even my own country belgium, that would be great too, any idea if it is to find somewhere?

Leslie said...

we have a stated quilt with this panel and a world panel on the back...my kids use it for homeschool geography lessons. i love how you did the names of the states all around!!!!!

Wendy Kay said...

Hi! I really love this quilt. I'm making my first ever quilt using this same panel and trying to decide how to quilt it. Free motion, straight line, etc. do you mind sharing how you did yours? Do you have to quilt the whole thing or, for instance, just free motion on the oceans?