Welcome to the West Virginia stop of the American Made Brand 50 States Blog Tour! For this tour, a quilting blogger from each state was asked to make a license plate.  Each of the finished plates will be sewn together to form one fantastic quilt. I was asked to create a license plate for my home state of West Virginia, and this is what I came up with:

I’ll post a tutorial tomorrow, although please keep in mind that I am NOT a pattern designer.  (If you are also NOT a pattern designer but wouldn’t mind creating stuff from your own ideas from time to time, you may be interested in some of the tools and techniques I used.)

When I was first asked to create a license tag for West Virginia, I knew that I wanted to represent the land somehow, and the way West Virginians feel about our home state.  (We love it here!)  I also really wanted it to look like it could be used as a license plate, if an especially “quilty” one.  I kept it simple with English paper pieced hexagons, easy applique and hand embroidery.  Also, West Virginia has had kind of a rough time of it lately (did you hear about our water crisis?), so I added a little rainbow-ish border to represent better days ahead.  When this plate is stitched into the quilt with the others, it’ll have a thin band of color all around it.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of my favorite things from around West Virginia.  You may recognize Fiestaware and Blenko Glass, two West Virginia companies whose products I see in my own home and from coast to coast whenever I travel.

American Made Brand is giving away a set of eight fat quarters just to thank you for visiting this blog!  To enter, just leave a  comment by Sunday evening at midnight (Eastern), June 15.  (If you comment before I get up Monday morning, I’ll probably leave you in the running, but I do get up awfully darn early and I don’t want you to miss out.)  If you have no idea what to say, just tell me what state you’re from.  Actually, this is open to anyone around the world, but if you’re not in the USA they’ll ship to me and I’ll ship to you, so please be patient with us and allow a little time if that’s the case.  These are wonderful fabrics, so please enter and get a chance to try them for free!

I was also told that I could give away the leftover fabric once I created my license plate.  As a quilter though, I’m used to making something out of the fabric first, then giving it away.  So I made placemats (following this tutorial) and a friend of mine is going to deliver them on her regular route with Meals On Wheels.

Giving the fabric away as placemats to people receiving meals seemed like an especially appropriate way to share American Made Brand fabrics.  I just picture all the Americans involved in the creation of this fabric, from the farmers to the weavers, dyers and even the truck drivers making sure it all gets where it’s going — surely they’d all be happy to know they helped put a smile on an elderly someone’s face, along with good food in their belly.  And placemats are a great way to show off more of the colors in the American Made Brand spectrum, aren’t they?

So, be sure to comment below for a chance to win eight fat quarters of American Made Brand fabrics, and check back tomorrow if you’d like instructions to make a West Virginia plate of your own!

Update: Giveaway has now ended.