Oregon Trail - America the Beautiful

I outlined this block in the photo to help decipher the actual block in the quilt. I used so many scrappy fabrics for this section, it makes it hard to see the block if you are not familiar with it. Another reason it may be hard to decipher is due to the shape of this section.
There is only one full Oregon Trail block in the quilt. The rest get cut off by other sections.

Reveal date is getting closer!  I am excited to show off the whole quilt and to see how the rest of the guild interpreted this theme.  I'll share some of those photos as well on June 6th.

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Texas Tears - America the Beautiful

To represent the lower west and the desert states, I used the Texas Tears Quilt block.

You may be able to visualize what the whole quilt may look like by now. But I still have the quilting to show off, which I'll do on June 6th.



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Purple Mountains Majesty

 Scrappy purple mountains.  I went through every purple I had to make these mountains.

Some were scraps that were gifted to me, some came from my yardage where I cut off  a 1.5 inch stripe.

In the top photo I was going for dark mountains in the front with medium in the middle and light in the back to show how things in the distance are always lighter in color to the eye.

I drew these pointy mountains on paper then paper pieced them together.

My goal was to have all the dark fabrics on the left since the sun is shining on the right.

While piecing though, I ended up flipping one around. Whoops!  I left it like it was.

You can see a hint of the Oregon trail block under these mountains.

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Kansas Star - America the Beautiful

This is another block in my America the Beautiful quilt.

It was made for my quilt guild's annual quilt challenge, "America The Beautiful - Home Sweet Home"

For this challenge I decided to make a quilt using my own design.  This section is the Kansas Star block and it represents the Amber Waves of Grain. The block measures 6 inches and I paper pieced it together to get nice sharp points.

I'll show more sections of the quilt every few days and on June 6th, the day of the Challenge reveal, I will show the whole quilt in all its quilted beauty.

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Carolina Lily - America the Beautiful

Here is my version of a Carolina Lily block representing the south.

Hubby said it reminded him of Christmas, which it kind of does to me too, but I wanted the background to be green instead of white since the south is full of green trees.

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Ohio Star - America The Beautiful

Representing the upper Northern half  of my "America the Beautiful" quilt is the Ohio Star block.

Lots of green with some blue to represent lakes.  You can also see a hint of the "Carolina's" Under the Ohio Star. The curve of the river on the left almost makes it look like I used a fish eye lens on my camera.

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Rolling Hills

This is the first section I worked on for my guild quilt challenge, "America The Beautiful: Home Sweet Home". I had a good time collecting all the green scraps from my bins to make this section. They represent the Appalachian mountains that run up the east coast.

You can also see a hint of the sun rays and the start of my flying geese.
It isn't quilted yet in this photo. I'll save those photos for the big reveal in June.

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Guild Quilt Challenge

Every year my guild puts on a Quilt Challenge.
The theme for this year's challenge is "America the Beautiful - Home Sweet Home".
  I have been spent most of my quilting time working on my interpretation of the theme.
The Reveal isn't till June 6th, so until then I can only show bits and pieces.

   Today I want to show off one of my favorite parts of the quilt.
It is the storm at sea section (with a hint of sandy beaches on the left).
I drew out the block on graph paper so I could work with a 6 block.
Then I printed it out and used the templates for paper piecing.  

There will be a total of 8 different quilt blocks in the quilt, along with some other techniques.  I'll show a little every couple of days and then on June 6th, I'll post a photo of the whole thing along with the other quilts in the challenge.

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