Friday, February 17, 2012

The United Scraps of America

As I've already shared, I am heartbroken over Picnic and their eminent closing. I am trying to find solace elsewhere. Though different than Picnic, I am becoming equally smitten with Block Posters. Block Posters is a free site that allows you to upload images and enlarge them {of course, I find this right after I invest in an overhead projector}.

I wasted no time uploading a high resolution image of the United States {found using google image search}. I enlarged it enough that when finished it printed on 5 sheets of 8x11 sheets of paper across and 3 sheets down.


What might you ask do I intend to do with a 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet map of the US? Well, I have been hoping to collaborate on a quilt with the Queen of Quilts {my mom}.

So I laboriously traced the mirror image of each state out on heat and bond.


Then I ironed the heat and bond states onto scraps of fabric...


When the heat and bond is affixed, it makes it easier to make precise cuts.


Some states I cut exact, others I left some excess. I wanted to be able to overlap the states so for a state that was cut with excess, the precisely cut state would lay over the excess of the bordering state.


When I was ready to piece my states together, I pinned the 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet printed pattern behind the white background fabric. I was able to see the location of the states through the fabric and lay them down exactly where they needed to be to maintain the accuracy of scale.


With the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, my United Scraps of America is pieced together.


I had hopes of handing over my part of the collaboration to the Queen of Quilts this weekend BUT she informed me that now I have to sew each state down. I thought about sewing them down with my sewing machine but I want to emphasis the details of the more detailed borders SO it looks like I'll be whip stitching each state by hand.

Can anyone guess what I'll be doing this weekend?

9 comments:

  1. Adorable, I love it! I would LOVE for you to link this up to My Favorite Things Party going on all week! Stopping by from the Tip Me Tuesday Party. I hope you will stop by & link up!
    Much love,
    Iffy
    StayAtHomeNation.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for your sweet feedback. I am beyond flattered.

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    2. Love your quilt! How big is it?

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  2. Jill, darn, looks like it's closed. I'd love to try next week. Thanks for popping over and leaving me some feedback!

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  3. I love your quilt, and also wanted to let you know about Ribbet, if you haven't found out already. It is basically Picnik under a new name. I think they just bought the rights to the software when Picnik was closing, I got an invite just a few days after it closed. I love it, it works EXACTLY the same!

    http://www.ribbet.com/

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  4. Do you happen to know the link for the particular map that you used? I have googled and googled, and can't find one that I think will work. Thanks much!

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  5. My son is very good with the computer and he used paint to enlarge the map and printed out many pages. I've cut them and taped them together. Now comes the hard part. But I have to say you have made it look a lot easier! Thank you!

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  6. i want to do this. yours looks great

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  7. I’m about to do one of these!! So excited to see yours! Thanks and I wish I could see yours now.

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I am head over heels you took the time to leave me a comment.

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