This quilt was a very long-term thing! I participated in an online block swap in 1999, and my set of blocks arrived at my home late that May, literally days before I was to move out of state. I was really worried for a little while there! This swap was among people from all over the world whose name was Sandy, or a variation of that: Sandra, Alexandra, Sandi, etc. For a very long time, the blocks sat in my closet while I debated what to do with them. Finally an idea began to form.The blocks weren’t all exactly the same size, which is common in a swap, so I used Sharyn Craig’s Twist ‘n Turn technique to even them up. I like the effect! I had originally wanted to turn this into a blue and yellow quilt, but the red just seemed to want to be used. That was probably because of the events of 9/11/01.
The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted and measures approximately 66″ x 80″. I used smaller versions of the stars in the corners of the outer border, which is a fireworks print. The quilting includes stitch-in-the-ditch work along the pieces of the sashing, a multicolored swirl effect in the large stars, and dark blue stippling in the blue backgrounds. The border is quilted with a loopy pattern. It was all finally finished in June, 2002. The blocks in this quilt came from Missouri, Florida, California, Massachusetts, and Colorado in the U.S; British Columbia and Saskatchewan in Canada; Leicester in the U.K.; Panama; and South Africa!