Americana blocks for Memorial Day

Up on the design wall for Memorial Day:

My guild had a request for a fund-raising quilt. The theme of the event is Americana, so I asked the members to make a red, white & blue block...any pattern, any size! 
I love to make sampler quilts with different block sizes. It goes back to my original T-Shirt quilt, when I wanted to use all the artwork, not cut up the shirt into standard size blocks. I soon realized the method I devised could be used with any collection of odd blocks. In fact, many times when I teach that class, I have someone who brings all their trial blocks and puts them into a sampler!

Although today is Memorial Day, about 20 guild members came for a "Mile-A-Minute" demo (see side bar for a tutorial post) and to get their first look at the Americana blocks.
We still get together when it's a holiday, which often happens on a Monday (we meet every Monday for one thing or another). Somebody always asks if that's a good idea, and I always say it is, because if even 5 people need somewhere to go that morning...well, they have a good place to go to enjoy themselves for awhile!
Quilt guilds have many reasons to exist, and among those are important social reasons. When the guild meets on a holiday we have a pattern to hand out or a simple demo...nothing big. Just a reason to come, if somebody needs to justify it.
Well, there was the year we met on Christmas Eve...and then again on New Year's Eve, when one of our members was inspired to make an entire Southern NewYear's good-luck dinner of black-eyed peas, collard greens and corn bread! My, my...that was something!
But sometimes it's just a Sit & Stitch when we can have a good time with grown-up conversation, sharing creative projects and solutions, and mainly taking time away from the crazy world we each inhabit. It's a bit of running away to Quilt World, a very healing place to go!