As I have said before, I LOVE Patriotic Quilts! This is the first one that I made back in the early 1990’s! I worked for Kaye England and she was working on her first book. She owned Quilt Quarters in Carmel, Indiana. We had a fabulous, creative group of ladies working in the shop. We worked there and taught classes. Kaye offered us the opportunity to design a block for her book “Voices of the Past, A History of Women’s Lives in Patchwork”. I was lucky to be assigned Betsy Ross as my famous woman to honor! Here is my quilt titled “Dear Betsy” and it is 70” x 70”.
Here is a photo of the book and the page where my block design is illustrated.
A little bit about reproduction fabrics back in the 1990’s…there were not many! Fabrics that were popular then were brights and lots of fabrics with gold on them. I wanted my quilt to be a little on the old fashioned side, so I overdid the entire quilt when it was completely finished with a “tea dye” product in a box that was sold in quilt shops. While I was very nervous it would ruin the quilt, I was actually quite happy with the final product. Here is a close up of the quilt:
I used a special “Yes Mam” fabric that was part of a fundraiser for Breast Cancer. The fabric was sold and used in quilts for competition at a show that was held in Indianapolis, Indiana for several years. The large, national shows were held several times at the Hoosier Dome and had both quilts on display, but several vendors. We were all happy to be a part of it!
Years later I decided to make a mini “Dear Betsy” quilt and give it to my mother for her birthday. She was very involved in DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) and she loved anything patriotic. She was a librarian for years and very involved in genealogy and history. Here she is with the mini quilt on her birthday.
And finally, using up leftovers and a special blue "star" fabric, here is the back of the quilt:
Thank you for reading my blog! It is really fun to revisit these quilts and their stories!
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