Project --- ???

I have wanted to show you this for a couple of weeks now. I have a local quilt group (QBX) that meets once a month and I wanted to show it there first. We met Weds. night so now I can show you!

Each month we rotate who's blocks we do. Rachel had November (we didn't meet in Dec.) She had traced around each state on a map and had us choose different states to make the fusible pieces. I immediately imagined making this rainbow quilt.



I borrowed her map and started tracing the next day. All of the fabrics came from my stash. I'm on a total rainbow kick lately. Throwback to my '80s childhood.  :o)

Cutting the smaller stated was tricky. You need to have VERY sharp scissors.

You might be wondering why I left out Utah. This was a happy accident. I had cut out all of my states and had them all laid out. I was pressing them briefly to set them in place. I pressed with an up and down motion of my iron moving from California westward. I passed over Utah and realized it wasn't there? "What happened to Utah!?"

It had somehow managed to flip over and get stuck to the bottom of my iron. Yuck! Well I managed to clean it off and luckily no yucky burned fusible goop got on the quilt. I debated on whether or not to cut out another Utah. In the end I decided to leave it off. It adds a cool look, it's where I live, and there was lots of reds and oranges in the quilt. This balances out the colors with the smaller eastern seaboard of blues and purples.

Its difficult to get the stated to line up perfectly. I chose to quilt a straight stitch around each state a few times allowing for an organic feel. This also helped to cover and gaps between fabrics. I used a different color thread for each state. Ok, there were a couple colors I used more than once. But I'm pretty sure I used close to 45 different colors!

The background quilting was done to mimic the lines of latitude. I originally planned on adding longitude lines too but decided they might be too much. Who knows, I still might add them. 

All I have left to do it bind it!

I haven't been able to think of a good name for this quilt. Do you have any ideas? I'd like to open it up for suggestions. If I choose your name I'll send you a Crazy Old Ladies pattern or your choice!