Texas flag quilt

I have this picture as my header of my blog but I realized I've never told the story behind this quilt.

Five years ago our son was expecting his first child; Reed and Angela lived in Idaho but were Texans through and through so I decided to make them a quilt for the baby. I gave myself some guidelines;

1. I HAD to use fabric that I had and hopefully use just scraps since they were taking over the sewing area.
2. It would be nice if it was an I-Spy Quilt also.
3. It had to be very washable and usable so it could be dragged around and not come apart.

After coming up with the flag idea I started the relaxed log cabins, using fabric strictly from my scrap bins but using as many 'I spy' kinds as I could find. While sewing I puzzled over the star portion; I knew that an appliqued star would have vulnerable areas where there would be hardly any fabric turned under so I thought I'd piece the star into the background (I'd recently read a book on piecing difficult shapes.) I did a sample and realized that the pieced star also had vulnerable spots that would likely fray with hundreds of washings so I couldn't use that method. I came up with a paper pieced relaxed log cabin block that gives the star 1/4 inch seams at the vulnerable spots that had eliminated the other 2 methods. This would holdup to many washings.

Then I quilted it with Texas designs; the Alamo, bluebonnets, an oil rig, and the word TEXAS as used in the Texas centennial. It was fabulous so I showed it to the quilt shop owner and she asked me to write the pattern to sell. So I did. I made the one pictured above for a model for the shop and eliminated the Texas quilt designs because some of them were copyrighted and gave the Texas themed one to my first grandchild; Tyler.

It has never been washed; It was too gorgeous and has always been on a wall. I could have appliqued the star and it would have been fine. Oh well, I made him a different quilt, one that was easy, a rail fence, and could clearly be used by the child.

I still sell the pattern to the local quilt shop. That shop is Quakertown Quilts. Here's a link to the shop.

*Quakertown Quilts no longer exists if you want the pattern e-mail me at lauriekstone@gmail.com