Across America....Finished!

This little quilt is made from a cheater cloth that I bought about 15-20 years ago.  We were supposed to use it as the board for a game board.  Two things happened that ruined those plans: 1) we were enjoying our games too much to switch to a new game, and  2) the game I created was too difficult. 


Oh well, I just folded the fabric and put it aside.  What else to do with unused fabric?  And it sat and sat and sat.

Then we bought a camper and began making plans to travel for a bit.  We've been keeping track of the states we've visited in our heads, but I had the idea to use the game map fabric to make a quilt that would do the remembering for us.  To mark the states we've visited, I'd add a button.  And I new use for the fabric was born.....to find the fabric was another deal, but eventually I did.

I decided to use black thread and follow the drawn lines to mark the borders of each state.  Easy in some places, not easy in other places.  Because I also like the playful pictures, I decided to outline some of those as well.  There's no rhyme or reason for the ones I chose.  I just did some.  The quilt is more stable having more stitching.  

Canada and Mexico are pretty big and there really wasn't much to quilt, so I followed the little bit there and added a little more as I saw fit--lots of trees in Canada and a few hills in Mexico.

Then I started adding buttons.  The thing I realized though is that I'd need to bring buttons and stuff with me when we do travel.  So instead of a regular label, I made a pocket label with a recycled zipper to keep the stuff from falling out.  I took a couple of minutes to add the pocket and finished the buttons.  Now we have a small sofa quilt for the camper that hold memories of where we've been and has the potential to "button up" the places we'll visit in the future.

Finally, to stabilize the quilt more, I added some waves in the oceans. Ready for some surfing?  These waves are pretty big.