Pioneer Braid wall hanging

This wall hanging isn't new, but since I basically deleted my blog and started from scratch, and also since I have some new blogging friends, I thought I would show some of my earlier quilting.  I love the pioneer braid quilts, another one of those "one block wonders."  It is a simple rectangle block, sewn one on top of the other, usually in rows of darks and lights.  The only real tricky part is trimming off the triangular edges once you have the strips the length you want them, and then very, very carefully sewing the strips together because they are on the bias and will really strech out if you are not careful.  The key is not to handle those strips any more than absolutely necessary to pin them together and then stitch.  The bias edges also makes the binding a little more tricky, but slow and steady will keep those edges from stretching out.  I had a sweet little lady tell me that she literally threw away a whole quilt top once because she stretched the edges out so much that it was beyond fixing.  I was more than a little bit anxious about tackling this one, but it really was much more simple than I thought.  I wanted to do something patriotic for summertime so I did the braids in dark reds and creams and then added a top of blue and appliqued stars to my "flag."  I ended up quilting with three different stitches --- stitch in the ditch for the strips, blanket stitch applique for the stars, and stippling around the stars.