Monday, June 25, 2012

Flags from my Stash

It isn't like I want for something to do on a daily basis, but every now and then I just need to work on something that isn't for a pattern or just to get my juices flowing again or..... do I really need a reason?  :)
Fourth of July is coming and I haven't done anything for that holiday in quite some time.  I pulled out my little boxes of scraps not expecting to find enough of anything to accomplish a project, when the thought of mini flags jumped into my head.  How cute are these?? 
Do you have a 3-1/2" x 4-1/2" scrap of blue?  Do you have enough red and white to cut: 2 strips of each color @ 1-1/4" x 4-1/2" and 2 strips of each color @ 1-1/4" x 8-1/2"?  Then you have enough to make a cute little mini flag before the holiday gets here! 
I sewed my short stripes together and trimmed to match the blue rectangle.  Then I sewed the blue area and the short stripes together.
After the long stripes were sewn together, they were added to the top half of the flag.  For quilting, I just quilted wavy lines through all the stripes and one star in the blue rectangle.  This was all straight line sewing--no free motion. I then decided to face them vs. traditional binding so that I could add a bit of a wave to my flag. 

I had all 3 done in a day but that wasn't enough for me.....  A few days before, I had seen a yo yo flag on one of the sale sites.  Why buy when I could make it?  (Now I know why!!)
So I started cutting circles after I had decided how many I needed and thinking, "That isn't very many, I can do this!". 

If you have a Fat Quarter of each color, you too can make one of these old fashioned yet adorable flags.  It does have a throwback quality about it but I just love it...now that it is done!! 
You need 24 blue circles and 40 each of white and red circles.  I traced mine at 2-1/2" and the finished piece is 9" x 15-1/2".
I hadn't done a yo yo project in all my quilting years and now I can cross that off my list:)  The first 40-50 were fun and then I was pretty much over it.  Thankfully I was motivated to finish the other half when I saw how cute the top half was!  I think next time I might just buy the finished one but what sense of accomplishment would I get out of that, I ask you?  When I look at this one, I swell with pride for ALL that it stands for in regards to our country and the satisfaction of knowing I made it!!
Happy Fourth of July a bit early.

2 comments:

Jean Baardsen said...

Robin,
These are darling! My favorites are the top three. Guess I'm not a yo-yo person - though I can certainly understand your feeling of accomplishment! Did you hear from AAQI about the $1000 promise quilts? I have a bit of guilt over that since I totally dropped it when my quilts stopped selling....

Susan said...

I don't know how I missed this post, but I love your flags. I might have to make a yoyo flag too!