a patriotic picnic quilt

things have happened!
back at the end of march, you saw that i finished four quilt tops.
after march... those four just sat.
and sat and sat and sat.
during the life and time of unemployment, i scheduled a time to long arm when california was supposed to potentially be "open" again.  even though that has since changed, it didn't affect my long arming days (as you've read in previous posts...) and it helped me get a whole heck of a lot done.  including this cute little patriotic quilt!
at some point last year, i decided to just chop up a few quilts from my stash when i wanted to sew but didn't feel like cutting anything.  and when you're in the mood to cut, you should really take advantage of it!
this pattern happened to catch my eye on the free table at one of our guild meetings, so i had to pick it up and add it to my collection to see what happened.  it called for charm packs, but instead i just went ahead and chopped up the equivalent from my stash of reds, blues and whites.  the sample on the cover was also shown in the same color way, and i just couldn't unsee it after looking at my stash.  it was a slow start to piecing it together.  i think i started it in the beginning of january, and then it sat for a long while before i picked it back up again in march.
everything pieced together so easily, and i'm just loving the scrappy vibe.  this pattern has multiple sizes for this quilt, and this one is the "picnic" size.  after everything was pieced, i used some of the same fabrics for the backing and then quilted it on the long arm using a meander type stitch.  i felt like this quilt had a more traditional vibe to it, so using a more simple stitch would allow the pattern to remain in the forefront without being overly quilted.
oh hey... you can actually watch me quilt it too!
what's funny is that filming this i was in a tank top and shorts because it hit 95 degrees that day... and then just a few days later it was a high of 60 something and raining.  california is acting super weird, guys!
after quilting it, i used more of the red scraps remaining and bound it quick and easy on my machine and it was good and ready to go!  after a quick photo shoot at my parent's house, it was left with them to be donated to their church's humanitarian efforts.
if i find myself needing to cut down some of my stash in to 5" squares, this would absolutely be a pattern to consider again.  the 16 patch was WAY easier to make than it looks, and so much less chaotic than using a jelly roll and sewing super long strips together.  i looked up the pattern online to link below, and seeing the bright and colorful scrappy version on the website makes me already start to have some ideas for how different the next one could be.  guess i better start setting aside some 5" square pieces to get prepared for it!
pattern: katie's quilt
quilt count: 132