Saturday, April 12, 2014

Starting a Quilt of Valor



Kevin the Quilter will be the guest speaker at our guild in September. As I have mentioned before, Kevin is holding a block drive to make oodles and oodles of Quilts of Valor for military veterans. The blocks are simple but graphic and even a beginner will be able to make them. I have already sent him a set and he is past 2600 blocks! Yikes. There will be a sew-in later this year to make quilts from the donated blocks. Count me in!

Our guild is also going to be making Quilts of Valor (hereinafter simply referred to as QOV) this year. I made a start on mine this evening by using Bonnie Hunter's free pattern, Strip Twist. This is a quick pattern to make with great graphic qualities. The block uses 2.5" strips and goes together easily. I unearthed a small box of patriotic and mostly red, white, and blue fabrics from the top shelf of my sewing room closet. Always amazes me what turns up in there. I only made two strip sets this evening so there is a fair amount of repetition in the example above. The quarters are not yet sewn together and will not be next to each other in the quilt, so that little optical illusion in the center that looks like a quarter square triangle won't be happening in the completed top.

12 full blocks consisting of 48 quarter blocks will yield a completed quilt top. With a border it will finish at around 60" x 76". I need to check the QOV website to see if that is an acceptable size. If not, I will adjust accordingly.

I have been away from my sewing machine for a couple of weeks. Spring has sprung here and we have been working in the yard most of the time. Today we finished raking up and bagging all the old plant material from the perennial beds. 40 bags of yard waste and counting. It sure looks nice, though, and everything is mostly weeded as well. Several years of assiduously hand weeding and heavily mulching are definitely paying off. There aren't a whole lot of weeds considering the size and number of perennial beds involved. Some of what causes work for me are the little violets and society garlic that my husband planted many years ago. The garlic is especially troublesome as it spreads by seeding itself. I try not to let them flower if there are plants that escape my attention until that time. They hid in and among other plants, especially those with tall slender leaves, such as day lilies. Then all of a sudden in late summer, the tell tale white heads of flowers start appearing. Same deal with the violets. They are lovely if you only have one or two. Thousands of them is another story altogether. Not too many this year, though.

Anyway that time away from the machine definitely showed in this evening's sewing. I hard a hard time keeping to a consistent quarter inch seam. For that matter it proved troublesome to even sew a doggone straight line.

3 comments:

  1. so many blocks already made can see there are going to be lots of quilts for Kevin and his group to assemble, Like the block you are doing, will pop over and have a look at the instructions. Sounds like you have been busy in the garden, here I am having trouble with dandelions and a plant we all call sicky willie, not sure what its real name is but it is sticky to ouch, its one good point is it pulls out of the ground very easily

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    1. I didn't mention dandelions, but, of course, we have those, too. Not too many, as the neighbors mostly keep up with weed control. Despite the fact that I hand weed them as they appear, there are always some to take care of. I am going to google sicky willie. Funny name.

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  2. I am looking forward to meeting with your guild! I am so happy you all have adopted QOV as one of your causes!

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