Quilts of Valor #1

I saw this cute pattern on another site, by an amazing quilter. I really loved the mix of classic style quilts design with a more modern and interesting feel. That's my 14 year old, Jacob, holding the quilt for me. I made the top about 2 weeks ago, but there are technical difficulties in getting it on the blog. Those difficulties involve my 17 year old daughter, Victoria,

who always seems to have the camera when I want to get some photos off it! Now it's Saturday morning, and I see the camera, so if I can just find the cord to connect to the computer, all is well! No way that teenager is up before she has to be....

This quilt was pretty easy to make. That is, if you're not me :) I somehow managed to turn one of the block styles 90 degrees, so that the movement of the dark and light colors is interrupted and less obvious. Good news: it's a scrappy quilt, so who cares if it's exact? It called for 2 inch squares finished, and I wanted a bigger feel, so I used 3 inch squares finished. Now I'm in the middle of a 2nd one, this time blue. We'll see if I can do this one right! Since I'm using fat quarters for the blue, I'll keep to the 2 inch squares -- I'll have less waste with the fat quarters that way. For the lights, I just used a bunch of left-over scraps I had, so some of them are a bit darker. I added in the gold originally, to give it a touch of Marine Corps. I think I'll also use the gold with the blue, for a little Navy feel. It's been fun to put them together so far.

My goal is to make 5 Quilts of Valor this year, to send over to the rehab at Camp Pendleton or Balboa Hospital in San Diego. The only problem I have with the Quilts of Valor is that I'm not a pre-washer, and they want everything pre-washed. So I ended up washing it after I put the top together, then pressing and trimming all those raggedy seams. I use a little liquid starch with the water when I'm ironing, and it really smoothes it out.

Stitch and Rip

Finally got going on Ivy's quilt. I love pinwheels, so I decided on a pinwheel using this neat batik with solids to go with. Where I got into trouble was when I decided to set them on point. Always a challenge, because of the stretch that you get with the bias.

So after I put the quilt together and pressed it out, I saw that the edges were a full inch longer than the center. Yes, you're supposed to be more careful when you measure out your borders, but I was in a hurry. Grrr. Not a good thing. That means today is rip out the borders day, and I'm going to adjust the lengths and try to ease in the fullness. I like the way the triangles push down into the dark border, to add a little more interest. But I only did a couple, to reduce the amount of piecing.

An organized space

Every time I look in my sewing cabinet, I feel good! It's amazing how you can let things go, to the point where you didn't realize how bad it was until you clean it up. Like shaving your legs :) So now my sewing legs are shaved, and I feel ready to face the world.

In the process of the organize and purge, I found several projects already started. There's a baby quilt for granddaughter Ivy that's been cut out and sketched out and a quilt for my son also cut out and bagged. That was fun to see. I fall in love with the fabrics when I plan them out and buy them. But I guess I'm fickle, and I forget my loved ones until I discover them again! Now I'm excited about those projects again, so it's win-win. Here's my next project: Ivy's quilt.

And so it begins....

I've been itching to get back into my quilting for many moons. But life takes over, and you get involved in so many things. When the kids were all in school, I thought I'd have more time, but there was PTO, volunteering, and lots of church responsibilities. Then I became a teacher and started working, so there was less time. So I've decided to stop waiting for there to be more time, and just make time to get back into it.

One of my limitations has been that I'm a pretty slow hand-quilter, and I don't know how to machine quilt with any real level of attractiveness. I make a baby quilt for each of my grandchildren, and it's all hand-quilted. So they get those quilts at about age 1 1/2! So sad. Even worse is that this keeps me from taking on other new and fun projects that don't take so long. This year I've challenged myself to complete 8 quilts of various sizes. I want to create 5 to donate to Quilts of Valor, plus another 3 or so for home use. Our stash of quilts has really disappeared over the years, as some have been worn out or damaged, but not replaced.

I started this week by making quilts for our assistant principal and his wife, who just had twin girls. I decided to tie them, so it could be quick. One down, one needs to finish tying, then binding. The design is a postage stamp design, and it was fun to make. I altered the sizes of the blocks to make it more fun, but kept the fabrics the same. But it made me itch for when my machine quilting skills improve enough to do some stippling instead!


This is the back...