To honor the 4th of July, I stitched up another tiny quilt.  I love being patriotic, as the meaning has a sense of loving America and its peoples, the history and the early settlers, and those who set up the government in 1776.  It helps that my nickname in my childhood was Betsy, but I do love the red, white and blue.

I went through my Orphan Quilt Blocks box, found one that wasn’t being used, and smallerized it, using this PDF pattern to cut it out: Fourth July Tiny Quilt Star Center

I put on two borders, quilted it (so fast because it’s so small) and put a single-thickness binding on it (cut your strip 1-1/2″ wide), gluing down the back binding and top-stitching it down.  It is one of those quilt projects you can take at full throttle–no fussy cutting or intricate piecing.  Put your pedal to the medal and crank out a 4th of July star tiny quilt!

It slips over the back of one of those cheezy plastic stand picture frames (under 2 bucks at Walmart). [More on the quilt underneath it at the end of the post.]

Here’s a post with general directions as well as how to make a sailboat design.
And I have also made:

a snowman,

a harvest pumpkin, (which has more directions, especially on that binding)

and some Christmas trees. (I included the directions for the smaller trees.)

I made the quilt above quilt five years ago at the same time we had a government shut-down, and I was moaning about government needing to behave itself then.  I now look back on that particular chaos with a wistful glance; would that we had that steadiness now!

Yet, I still believe that America is a Tune, and that we must figure it out — sing it — together, no matter how painful things are.  After reading the book Hamilton, I value what those early fathers of our country (and mothers, too) must have faced and appreciate how much work they did and how inspired they were to come together and get the framework off the ground.

Have a Happy Fourth of July!