Happy Veteran's Day and Round Robin block

Happy Veteran's Day

The Round Robin Block I am working on this month is from Bea Lee.  She blogs at Beaquilter and the block she sent has been an honor and pleasure to work on this month and especially this last weekend.  It was a flag block that she machine embroidered God Bless in the star field and she is going to donate the finished quilt top to a veteran next year when it is completed.  Her starter block was a 12 1/2 inch block that I forgot to take a picture of before I added my borders and the rules of this round robin only allow me to show a teaser of what I added this month not the finished round, but you can see her block on her blog by clicking on the above link and scrolling done her October projects until you see her adorable flag block. 

My assignment was to add 20---3 1/2 inch blocks around it.  I love paper piecing but needed just the right inspiration as to what I could paper piece on a 3 1/2 inch block that would be a tribute to the veteran receiving this top at the completion of it.  I happened to go to a holiday bazaar the first weekend of the month and found the inspiration I was needing.  There were some patriotic signs there and one of them simply said, ' Liberty '.
It is a word I don't often use but it really resounded with me for this project.  I was really moved to say, "God Bless you for giving me and others around this world the liberties we hold dear."  So many things we enjoy in this great country are Liberties that others just don't have around the globe.  Liberties that we daily take for granted like freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, travel freely, heck even learn in a classroom and not hide behind a burqa when you are a woman are just a few of the social and political freedoms we enjoy in this land of the free.  So I choose to express my gratitude for the Liberty we all have thanks in large part for the sacrifices made by the men and women who for generations have served this country in the Armed Forces.  Thank you!!!

So for that teaser, I am showing these sneak peaks of a couple of the blocks I added to Bea's block.

I had this fabric in my stash with the Star Spangled Banner, America and America the Beautiful on it, that was perfect for piecing the needed letters.  Then I needed to add some stars and love how they turned out.

For all the letters I ended up giving in and buying Sam Hunter's newest book 'Quilt Talk'.  I loved seeing all her scrap totes in her recent blog hop and well just fell in love with her fat bottomed text font.  I feel that I will be getting chatty in at least one major quilt project next year and so it will definitely be put to major use in the year ahead.  I tweaked a few letters to make them more to my liking and am ready to send it on it's way.  I think I'll just enjoy looking at it for a while before sending it out but it's ready.

Keep Stitchin'