National Monument Quilt!

In celebration of National History Day I wanted to share a quilt that I am making for my son.

One of my favorite things in the world are quilts. When I was young my grandmother made me a storybook quilt of a girl and her dog. She hand embroidered each picture and offset each picture block with a solid colored block. I dragged that quilt everywhere I went until it literally fell apart at the seams. I think there is something special about a quilt that can tell you a story. The other day we came across this single panel of fabric with all these great National Monuments on it. Better yet the panel was only 79 cents. I love a good deal when I can get one.  I could not wait to get home and start working on it. I knew from the minute I saw it what I was going to do with it. There are 2 squares that I will be going and changing a bit to personalize it more for a quilt since it was originally made to be formed into a fabric book. As cool as a fabric book would be, I just really thought this would make a great quilt that not only will keep my son warm but it will teach him something as well.  The night we bought the panel I started cutting away. 

So after cutting out my squares from the National Monument fabric I took out my fleece and started cutting that to size as well. I used Fleece because its one of my sons fabric types of fabric.

I actually cut the squares out of the fleece that are going to back the print fabric along with the fleece strips for the accent pieces in between each square. Since the panel squares where just about the same size as a piece of paper i used this 8x 10 piece of cardstock as a guide. There will be a total of 12 squares with each square measuring 7in by 9 in. However when I cut my piece I cut them so that I would have 1/2 in and each side for sewing my seam.

The Colors I am using for the block pieces on the back are red and blue fleece with a green fleece accent. Then on the front there will be black and red fleece accents to go with the print fabric. I used my Fiskers rotary cutter to cut all the fabric. I love that tool. I honestly can't remember a day when I don't use this tool for something. I save my blades and then use them for different types of material. Also when I cut the accent strips since they were cut for 3 inches I was able to use my Fiskers 3in by 18in ruler as a guide for cutting. This made measuring very easy.    

When starting to piece my squares together I used my stick pins to tack it down and secure it in place so that my fabric wouldn't shift while sewing. When ready to start piecing things together it is always good to make sure everything fits right so that you can fix thing before sewing them in place. For this project I place both square inside out and tacked them in place. I sewed along the border at 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the colored borders and leaving about an inch gap in the lower left hand corner so that you can pull your square so that it's the right way. I will go back to sew them shut later. 

After sewing all the main squares together and pulling them so they are no longer inside out. I placed them all on the floor so that I could make sure that I had the color pattern for the back correct. I wanted to keep bright colors for the back since this was a child's blanket. The blue and the red had a great contrast together along side the green accent pieces.

Now that all my squares are finished I will be going through and attaching the accent pieces in between each square. The process I will be taking is to sew each accent piece separately inside out just like the squares. After all the pieces are sewn together I will be using a thick decorative stitch to attach all the pieces together. When I finish this I will make a new post sharing the finished product along with the actual steps I took to finish this great history quilt.



Happy Quilting