One FINISHED Quilt of Valor

I know that you were wondering if it would ever happen, but I have finally finished the Quilt of Valor that my friend, Marnie, and I were making for a mutual friend. And it looks GREAT…..

After I had finished putting the binding on, (Marnie picked out the gold fabric and it is the PERFECT finish!!), I wanted to wash it to get all of the markings out.

BUT, there was an awful lot of red there and I was concerned about bleeding.

I started out by adding a handful of “Color Catchers” to the washing machine….

….and then added extra water once the cycle had started……

I HATE that I can’t control the amount of water in my washer, but I have learned ways to trick it!!

The color catchers came out a little pink, but NO BLEEDING on the fabric!!!

The final step was to add the labels.

Now, our QOV group goes above and beyond when it comes to labels honoring our recipients!!

They embroider the emblem for each individual and also embroider all of the recipient’s information….

It will be a joy to present this, and I will be sure that there are pictures!!

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One of my favorite things about quilting is motivating others and helping them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings, and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

Easy Flag Quilting for QOV

For the past few Fridays, we have been looking at the quilting for my current Quilt-Of-Valor.

I knew that I wanted to quilt flags in the top and bottom border but didn’t want them going sideways along the vertical borders. Instead, I chose to quilt some stars and a few wavy lines./….

It worked perfectly!!

I finished off the quilt with the top and bottom flags and they were SO much fun to do……

I love how they look….

….and am especially happy that they were so easy to do!!

Thanks for following along with this lengthy quilting process!

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QOV IN Progress

My friend, Marnie, and I are currently working on a Quilt-Of-Valor and I wanted to give you a little peek……

Marnie has been madly piecing 1/2-square triangles….

and turning them into windmill blocks….

I did a bit of trimming…..

…and now it is back to her to start putting the sections together.

This is our plan……so far……

Can’t wait to get it finished and presented!!

It you want to learn more about the “Quilts of Valor” Project, check out this website.….

Freedom!!!

This July 4th, Michael and I have teamed together again to present both quilt and words that honor our defenders of freedom……

We often think of the 4^th of July in terms of freedom, and rightly so – our Country’s freedom from oppression, from control by a distant, foreign power intent on exploitation. What we don’t as often remind ourselves of is the cost in lost freedom, lost health, lost lives of men and women who served our country from the 18^th Century until now. This quilt of valor reflects the sacrifices from love – represented by the staggered heart blocks – by our service men and women who chose to lose their freedom and go where needed to protect each of us, and their Country. This quilt reminds us of those who returned and those who did not. We wish for no more conflicts, but know that until that Day when peace reigns, there will continue to be those special individuals who place others above themselves by moving into, not out of, danger.
Michael Arnold

A change in design

Yesterday, I posted about the start of a scrappy Quilt of Valor and left you with this design plan…..

I began auditioning fabric strips and quickly came up with this arrangement…..

Next I sewed each of the strips together so that the new strip set equaled the size of one of the blocks.

As I sewed, I started thinking…..and that always causes problems!!

Instead of having the blocks hover at the left side of the quilt, why not space them out across the quilt? GOOD IDEA FRANCES!!!

Once the strip sets were sewn, I trimmed them to the shortest length….

….and measured to see how much fabric I had to work with….

Now it was time to do the math!! My first pass ended up with different widths of fabric on each side of the outside squares…..

That won’t do!!! Let’s split the difference…..

That will work!!

After a little bit of trimming to make the sides perfect, I added borders…..

….and called it done!!

Now, because I like to learn something from each project, I can look at this quilt top and say that I wish I had put less fabric on the outside of the blocks and, instead, spaced them out better!!

Linda….please make more blocks that I can play with!!!!

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