Veteran's Quilts 11 & 12

I finished quilting a Double Wedding Ring last week and I've decided to pump out a few veteran's quilts before I start my next big project. After I finish this current batch I'll be taking a break from veteran's quilts for a couple of months. Both of these were a lot of fun to quilt. I'll bring all of the finished quilts to the next meeting.

 

This one was from a collection of monthly crumb blocks but I don't know who put it together.

 

I don't' know who made this one. I went out on a limb a bit with the quilting on this one by making it so prominent. I hope whoever made the quilt likes it! I also hope Susan can find a nice female veteran to give it to.

American Hero Quilts

Annie, our West Coast member, who sends us quilts for our Veteran quilt project sent me this information from her Quilt Guild. Thought you all would like to see it, too!

American Hero Quilts, a precursor local version of Quilts of Valor, recently marked the 18,000^th quilt they had given to injured soldiers in current conflicts during the last 11 years of their existence.  Sue Nebeker, the Vashon Island resident who started and still runs it, invited someone from the Hospital distributing the quilts in Kandahar to speak to the daytime Quilt Guild meeting, which was held at the soon to be closed Island Quilter Quilt Shop.  Thought you might like to see it; the sort of message that makes you not quite so tired of making yet another red, white and blue quilt…  Wish I could have attended the meeting, but they are held during work hours.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxFomLW-tw

Time to get backing fabric

Yesterday I did an inventory of out backing fabric for veteran's quilts. I have enough for the quilts I have here and 3 more. I'm pretty sure you have more than 3 ready to go!

What we had before was a combination of one bolt of dark blue print, one of a gold tonal and 2 bolts of fabric to be dyed. Actually it was 4 bolts of fabric to be dyed because I donated 2. I didn't like the quality of fabric to sell to my customers and it was a super bargain so I've been using it for veteran's quilts. So, since whenever we last bought backing fabric we've gone through 6 bolts. I think that's been about 2 years.

Bolts average 15 yards and I get 14 quilts out of that. If I can quilt 40 quilts this year I think we will need at least 2 more bolts of fabric. Here are some of the options I've found:

Thousands of Bolts have a LOT of options in the $10 - $11 range. I haven't bought from them so I don't know if they ever offer sales. But we could probably get a blue and a beige and that would work with most of the quilts that come through.

JoAnn has lots of options and we know that they always have sales. They also have this dyeable muslin that works out to about $8/yard. I have no problem dyeing the backing. It gives me a way to use up older/expired dyes (that are still good) and to better match the tops.

I don't know what our money situation is but let's discuss this at the Apirl meeting.

Tuesday Sewing

We are on the Hanover County Parks and Recreation calendar

for the FOURTH TUESDAY each month!

 

Mark your calendars to plan ahead and come sew and visit with us on

March 24 - 9 a.m. until 3 or 4 p.m. 

 

Bring your lunch or get something at Subway or Dominos. 

4-Patch Quilts

4-patch quilts are quick and fun to make. A lot of team effort went into making 4-patch blocks and sewing together on March 10 (meeting) and March 13 & 14, our regular Friday and Saturday sewing days.

Karen got everyone sewing 4-patches and we finished 4 veteran quilt tops (48" x 60"). We probably have enough blocks to make another quilt. If you didn't get a chance to make blocks, it's not too late, just bring them to the next meeting. You can refer back to this post

In no special order, here are our 4-patch quilt tops - notice the various ways you can set these blocks - really so many possibilities when you think about design and fabrics.

Look what we got yesterday!

I had a fun trip to Lancaster with my Mom. We arrived home yesterday to some fun mail.

One of my blog readers, Pam Avara, has been working on clearing out UFOs and we are the beneficiaries! I thought she was sending me one quilt top, instead we got 5! If you are so inclined please go to her blog and leave a thank you message and then think about which of these you might be willing to bind after I get them quilted. I think this brings my current backlog up to 9 quilts to be quilted.

March Block - Falling Triangles

Linda and Sandy came to Friday Sewing and made their Falling Triangles Quilt blocks while watching the video on Linda's iPad. 

Place light and dark 10" squares right sides together, sew 1/4" on outside edges

 

Cut apart on the diagonal

 

Press seams towards dark

 

Add 2-1/2" light strips to dark sides of triangles.

 

Quick and easy and finished!

Sewing March 13 & 14

It's that time of month - Friday and Saturday sewing together. Pack up your sewing stuff, your lunch and come join us for as long as you like. We'll start at 9 a.m. and sew until mid/late afternoon. Sewing both days is nice because we can leave our machines, etc., overnight. No need to bring your iron or cutting mats, we have those. If you can't come sew, just stop by to visit.

March Block of the Month

The Missouri Star Quilt Company offers great tutorials and for our block this month we will follow their video to make a FALLING TRIANGLES QUILT.
 
Here's the link:  http://land.missouriquiltco.com/falling-triangles/


You will need:

1 10" light square - CSQ provides (get your square at the meeting tonight)

1 10" dark square - from your stash

2-1/2" light strips - from your stash (watch video for sewing directions)
 
Watch the video and have fun sewing - you'll end up with 4 small blocks.

Do NOT sew them together as we will mix up all our blocks and sew them into a veteran quilt. This should make a nice, very scrappy quilt. 

Please bring your blocks to the April meeting.

Happy Sewing.

Veteran's Quilts 9 & 10

Just finished up these today!

 

I don't know who this one belongs but I LOVE the one white block.

 

From Facebook I learned that this one is Peg's. I think it will be very popular with the veterans.

 

I quilted both of these with a star swirl panto using white thread.

 

This is one reason these go quickly. I can quilt 2 on one back and I pair them up so that I can use the same thread and quilting plan on both. I get 2 done in the time it normally takes me to do one.

UFO Busting Update

Oops! I started something and then forgot to do the February post! Thanks to Estelle and Peg for prompting me. From the January post we have Estelle, Peg, Annette and Julie participating in UFO busting this year. Anyone else can join in at any time. Since there are so few of us I'm not going to do a monthly prize but I do have some participation gift ideas.

As of January the total number of UFO's was:
Vicki - 31
Estelle - 25
Julie - stopped counting at 10
Annette - 5
Peg - 13

That gives us a total of 84 and we all seem to have at least one that's over 20 years old.

So check in with a comment and tally how many new projects you started, how many you finished and your current total UFO number.

In 2 months I finished 7 but started 5 so my current UFO count is 29. One of my "finished" projects was actually thrown in the trash and that felt great!

At least I'm under 30 now. I really want to end the year under 20. 

It's too icy to go to church, too icy to go anywhere, so I am cleaning my sewing room (!)

I still have a box of CSQ books that I was attempting to sell on Amazon. A few things have sold, but there are at least 15 books still here, it's been at least 2 years, and they are taking up space.
If you want the list of the remaining titles (free to a good home!) just comment here or send me an e-mail at malshealy@embarqmail.com.

Does anyone object if I give the remaining books to the library book sale?

Thanks.

- Peg