Fun in the Desert: Firecracker Quilt in Progress

I'm always looking for quilt ideas that catch the eye. We get plenty of inspiration while surfing the Internet. So many creative people out there who are sharing what they do.

One day while I was reading Lazy Girl's newsletter or blog, she mentioned this funky ruler and gushed over the quilts that Julie at Jaybird Quilts created with it.

Several of those quilts caught my eye, but I needed to narrow down the choices.

I decided I liked the "movement" of the Firecracker quilt, so I asked Nina at my local quilt shop, Hearts and Hands, to order it for me. We talked about using some of the new patriotic fabrics in the quilt.

Brilliant idea!

When the pattern arrived, I shopped a bit and picked up some of the new red and blue fabrics from Hearts and Hands. I also got a nice cream on white fabric for the background. I have plenty of red and blue fabrics in my stash, so they got thrown into this mix.

The photo at the top of the page shows the interesting shapes you need to cut to get this quilt started. As Julie says in the pattern, be sure to read the instructions all the way through. This is a quilt where you cut all the pieces, sew about half of the pieces together, cut what you've made into other funky shapes, start laying it out, then sew some of your original pieces to what you constructed to make the fireworks.

The directions are really very good. The diagrams are lifesavers and excellent.

Here is what you get when you sew the funky white shapes to the kinda triangle shapes. I like the look already.

Then you cut these up using the Lazy Angle Ruler that I mentioned above (the link's up there, too). Lay them out on your design wall (or big table, in my case) with the left facing triangles you have ready to go.

You're making pinwheel shapes!

Then sew triangles to pieces to make blocks.

Here's what you get at this point!