Expression of Gratitude

It's been a little quiet around the blog lately.  Has it really been 10 days?  I seriously don't know where the time goes.  I guess it just means there has been a lot going on.  At least I feel like there has.  I do have a couple of finishes to show you.  I finished up the two Quilts of Valor I have been working on.

Here's the star one.  I worked on it several days in October, sandwiched it on Halloween, and quilted and bound it this week.

I chose a star and circle/double circle motif for the quilting.  Can you see the stars?  Then I did echo quilting inside each of the star points.

I quilted a star in the center of the center square and then echo quilted in the corners of the main square around the star.

It made for some pretty dense quilting and such lovely texture.  Not perfect by any means, but it was fun, and I think the finished quilt turned out pretty well.

I did a really scrappy binding to mimic the scrappy border around the star, which you'll just have to imagine, I guess, since the only photo I took of the binding and the label were blurry.

The second quilt is more a mix of traditional and modern, I think.  The flag is  the central image, surrounded by a border with cornerstones, a narrow border, squares with 9-patch cornerstones, another narrow border, then asymmetrical wide borders and scrappy binding.

The quilting is just swirls, but I like it.  It reminded me of the flag, blowing in the wind.

And I did remember to label them - unusual for me.

I hope that these quilts warm and comfort those warriors who receive them  I am grateful for their service and their courage and their sacrifice.  I know a little of what it means. And I know a little of the sacrifice of their loved ones too - the wait and the worry and the loneliness.  Where would we be without them?

Thank you to all those who serve and have served.  God bless.

Lots of activity (finally!) Not. One. Finish.

I have been in a bit of a creative funk lately.  For a couple of weeks I've been having trouble getting anything done.  I am here to say that I think my little funk was an aberration and I'm back in the groove.  Maybe.

Last week I posted photos of all the stuff in my to-be-quilted pile.  It is all still there.  Every last bit of it.  But it's funny how I got back on track...

A few months ago, my friend gave me this Juggling Summer Layer Cake to go along with the Juggling Summer FE bundle she gave me for my birthday.  (I have very generous friends, don't I?) 

So, last Friday, I was sitting here feeling all guilty about the stack of quilts that only needed backs so they could be sandwiched and quilted, and inspiration struck.  Finally.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the back of my Modern Maples quilt.

I dug into the back of that layer cake and pulled out 5 black squares and made this giant modern maples block.  It measures 27-1/2 inches.  It's gonna be the focal point on the back of that Modern Maples quilt.  I ordered some yardage to go along with it.  I think it's gonna be awesome.

And while I was digging around in that layer cake, I remembered a quilt pattern I've been wanting to make for-ev-er as part of my goal to make every quilt in Camille Roskelly's Simplify book at least once (there are several I've made more than that), and the rest of this Juggling Summer layer cake seemed like the perfect fabric choice.

So I grabbed the Wonder Under and started drawing circles.  And by Saturday afternoon, the layout was done...

all the circles were fused and appliqued onto the layer cake squares....

And by Monday afternoon, I had an almost-finished quilt top.  I'm still trying to decide what to do about the borders.  I used Kona Coal for the sashing (totally out of character, I know) because it really made the colors pop.  Yes, I admit it.  Gray has it's place.  (Speaking of gray, I'm sorry for the weird glary inside pictures, but it's been gray and gloomy here most of this week.  The weather seems to be more agreeable today, so maybe I'll try to get out and take some pictures later.)

I was catching up on my blog reading the other night and I noticed this quilt and it occurred to me that a giant wonky star would make a wonderful Quilt of Valor.  Our MQG has had an urgent request for Quilts of Valor  recently, and I've been planning to join in.  Yesterday, I dug into my newly purchased stack of fabrics and came up with this.  The problem is that the QOV Foundation has very specific rules for quilts to be accepted as Quilts of Valor.  They need to be a minimum of 50" x 70".  I wasn't there yet, and I was determined to work from my stash and not to buy any more fabric.

So, after some strategic fabric additions, here is the quilt I came up with.  It measures 60" x 75".  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I'm not sure I don't regret using Kona Putty instead of Kona White for the background fabric.  The putty has the advantage of matching the background of the light colored prints, so it won out over white.  Hopefully I will like it more once it's quilted.

The original center of the star quilt was supposed to be this bright blue square, but it just didn't work.  It was way too bright for the rest of the fabrics in the quilt.  But that fail gave me another idea.  The inspiration for this quilt seemed to come just one piece at a time.  It isn't finished yet, and I still don't know exactly what it will look like. 

I added a Kona snow panel (I had the Kona in my stash) with cornerstones.  (Here I was auditioning this red floral fabric for another row.  Nope!)

Next I added a row of red and then a row of 6" squares with nine patch cornerstones....  It's coming.  It measures 48" x 54" right now.  But I think I'm going to have to break my rule and go buy some fabric for the outside rows.

So now I have 8 (count them! E.I.G.H.T.) unquilted quilts, all needing backs, all needing batting (sounds expensive!), all needing sandwiching (yuck), and all needing quilting and binding.

Guess I had better get busy!