Quilt of Valor

This is my latest (second) Quilt of Valor.

Our guild has taken on this project; we've been doing it for the past 3-4 years or so. Part of national organization, a Quilt of Valor (QOV) is given to a returning wounded service man or woman. It is a way of showing that we care about them, and their recovery, and appreciate what they have done for our country. The organization has given out tens of thousands of quilts.

Most of the time we make red, white, and blue quilts, because it seems like that is the preferred color scheme. There are a lot of patriotic fabrics available, and we scour the fabric stores looking for them.

These particular fabrics I found at the (now-closed-sad) Black Cat Quilting in San Francisco. I found the pattern in a magazine, and thought I would try it. As you can see, it's simply a rectangle, surrounded by lots of borders.

It wasn't my favorite pattern to do, because it was just border after border after border! But I'm happy with the way it turned out.

I experimented with my free motion quilting, using a different design or motif in each border. That was fun to do! I can always use the practice of quilting!

This is the very center of the quilt. You can just barely make out the word "America" which I quilted in script on that center piece.

Here is a row of some sort of unidentified species of trailing vine!

The above shows one I really liked, the wavey lines back and forth (very easy!) and some sort of wonky spirals, which still need a lot of practice...

Here you can see some free motion hearts, and some arcs. Many thanks to Leah Day and her fabulous blog full of quilting designs and tutorials. Check out her blog/website. It is full of inspiration.

I absolutely loved the stair step pattern I made in this red row. I should mention that I used some great red-white-and-blue variegated thread for the quilt. (Until the last round, when my thread ran out and I couldn't get any more! Then I used blue thread.)

Part of the requirement for these quilts is to provide a fabric bag to carry them in. This makes it much easier to transport many quilts, and is a tidy package in which to present the quilt. I made mine based on the measurements of a pillowcase, and used the same fabric I had used in the quilt.

Some time this spring a few people from our guild will go to a Veterans Hospital and take these quilts to the people who are there. It's such a small thing to do for people who give so much to our country.