I wanted a red,white and blue mini quilt for my quilt stand, so I got out some patriotic colors and prints and had some fun.  I did something really different this time, and I’ll show you step by step.  Here’s what you need –

Four 2-1/2 inch squares each of blue and white,
Four 3-inch squares each of red and white,
Four 2-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch rectangular border pieces of star print.
One square of blue, 4-1/2 inches square

Pair the red and white 3-inch squares and make HSTs.

Using Aurifil 50 wt thread makes piecing easy and precise.

Lay out the block and sew in rows as usual.

Then, loading it on the longarm, I stitched around the edges to hold it in place.

I had this pattern from Twice Quilted designs, but I don’t like the way you have to use these. The pattern calls for flipping and reversing the page, and it just gets too involved to be practical. Maybe if you are marking and hand quilting, these would work, but for a machine quilted project it is just too convoluted.

But, I liked the idea of two lines of quilting in different colors. So, I got out my Golden Threads paper and made my own. I started by laying it over the mini quilt to get the size I needed.

Then, I traced some of the motifs, putting them closer together to cover a smaller project.

I used two colors of pencil to help keep the paths straight. The fireworks and stars will be quilted in different colors.

I started with red thread and the fireworks motifs.

Then I did the star motifs in blue.

I noticed that the actual quilting didn’t cover the whole piece evenly, so I added a freehand loop in white thread to finish it off.

Here are a couple of close up views.

I put the little hangers on the back, two wide loops to hang the little quilt on the frame two inches wide by one inch folded to 1/2 inch.  It is stitched down under the binding, and the loops will turn up but not show over the top of the quilt. (see here), then added the binding in the same star print.

The hand sewing to the back only took one evening.  Hanging on the stand, it was the perfect decoration for the patriotic holidays of summer.

It goes well with the Value Play quilt on the wall.

Fireworks and stars, the perfect quilt pattern for a star mini quilt.

Have you ever quilted a project with two or three different colors and motifs?

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