Hopeful Homemaker

Tomorrow is Flag Day in the US, and therefore a good time to share another patriotic colored quilt.  I have two favorite color combinations that both feel like summer.  One is red, white, and blue.  I love the sound of flags waving in the breeze.  It’s also been a week of Flight Quilt pattern features here at Hopeful Homemaker, so today naturally features a Patriotic Flight II Quilt.

Years ago Leah Duncan released a whimsical print with blue birds flying on a white background.  For me, it was an instant favorite, but it took me a while to decide how to use it.  Eventually it found a home as the background fabric for this quilt.

The birds that circle inside the star feature a red 30’s reproduction style floral (I’m sorry I have no idea what its name or designer is). The star is my favorite Amelia blue.  That lovely blue is also featured as the background of my Lucky Lone Star quilt, which is one of my favorite patriotic quilts.

The quilting was done by Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting.  She’s talented, professional, and she’s also quick to finish my quilts.

In real life, I love watching birds.  I especially enjoy watching hawks and am always on the lookout for eagles.  A few weeks ago I sat quietly in my backyard when I heard a Cooper’s hawk call from the neighbor’s yard as dozens of smaller birds scattered in different directions.  A few minutes later, the hawk sailed over the fence and low across my lawn, just a few feet in front of me.  It perched in another neighbor’s pine tree for a few minutes before gliding away in another direction.  It was beautiful and I felt grateful to witness it.  My children like to tease that if I wasn’t so busy raising a family, I might have been a birder.  They’re not wrong!

For now, I’m content to scan the sky as much as possible, and keep making quilts.  This patriotic Flight II quilt will be a festive addition to our summer!

This quilt top is one I’ve worked on slowly over several years. It’s a large block version of the traditional circling swallows block, and is paper pieced.  I wanted it to be colorful, unexpected, and big enough to serve as a fun picnic or beach quilt.  Here it is, my large Flight quilt top:

I made my first version of the Flight quilt back in 2014 with Bonnie Christine fabrics.  That was TEN years ago!  Wow, time has flown.  Since then, here and there I’ve revisited it, and finally released the pattern.  (It’s actually a two in one pattern, with a bonus extra large single block Flight II pattern that makes a 64″ quilt)  Over the years I made a few sample blocks, but I always wanted to make a large 9 block version.

I had a few sample blocks in solids, all made independently.  I decided to use them, however, and went through my stash of solids to make several more.  It’s a vibrant quilt, and the unexpected color combinations make me smile.  (They remind me of my Prosper in Solids quilt, but maybe even more bold.)  It’s SO much fun to play with color and see how they all interact with each other.  That interaction, and observing what takes center stage, is one of my most favorite things about quilting.  I get to experiment endlessly, and learn from all of it.  Color is such a great teacher!

I’m currently brainstorming how to quilt this.  It could be fun to create something cool in the negative space.  I would also like to make the birds stand out, but perhaps a simple edge to edge design will prevail.  Either way, I’m excited to finish this large flight quilt top and have it begin the journey of memory making with my family!

When I launched my Flight Quilt pattern, it only made sense to include both sizes.  I have long loved the symmetry and beauty of the traditional circling swallows design.  After I made my first Flight quilt, I also made a larger, single block version years ago and called it Flight II.  The pattern includes the Flight and Flight II blocks, so it made sense to make another Flight II quilt.  Here it is, Flight II Quilt in Posy fabrics!

This version provided an opportunity to play with some new colors:  Ruby + Bee solids by Heather Ross and Annabel Wrigley, plus a few prints from Annabel’s Posy collection.  I enjoyed sewing with them, and found the colors to be very pretty.

I chose a rich blue for the background of the quilt and an orchid for the star.  Circling are 8 prints from the Posy collection.  Because of the larger size, this quilt comes together quickly and measures 64″ square.

I wanted understated quilting, so I quilted this on my longarm (I am trying to improve!) in an edge-to-edge loop pattern.  The binding is the same gorgeous blue as the background.  And for the backing, I selected a happy Martha Negley print which I’ve saved for years.  I love the light contrast it provides to the quilt front.

This Flight II quilt in Posy was made for Allee, a dear friend to all of my daughters.  Her goodness and kindness has lifted my girls again and again, and we all love being around her.  She is like a 6th daughter, so it only made sense for her to have her own quilt.  As I’ve said before, quilts are art we can wrap around people we love.  What a joy it is to do that!