Quilt of Valor

My guild has a great Quilt of Valor group that meets monthly to work on Quilts of Valor.  This is one I made using lots of scraps from my stash.  It's 62 x 70.

All of the blue squares have stars in them

The red sashings have many different fabrics.  Some have stars and others don't.  The white stars are the only constant fabric.  They are all the same - also full of stars.

I used a red/white/blue variegated thread to quilt a pantograph that has flags and stars.  The is a large flag with one star in the corner, then other stars between the flags.

There is an extra row of sashings around the outside to create a border, 

and to finish the stars on the outside

The backing is a red tone on tone, with a blue binding to finish

Life's a Beach

I bought this fabric in January 2014 when it was miserably cold.  I saw this and immediately felt like I was at the beach.  It's just so warm and sunny.  I finished piecing in September of that year, but just now got it quilted.  It's 56 x 76

There are spinning tops in two color-ways.  Pink and cream

pink spinning top

cream spinning top

I used a variegated thread that had most of the colors in it to quilt a pantograph that has fish swimming across, mixed in with swirls.  I thought the fish added to the summery feel

I love the yellow giraffe print for the border:

The backing is a great zig zag that is full of color. I used this same fabric for the backing

Chainlinks

This is my quilt - I ran a mystery for our guild this summer, and this was the pattern I selected.  It's from Marcia Hohn at Quilter's Cache.  The first clue gave yardage amounts, then at each meeting a clue was given as to how many units to make.  Then the final presentation of all quilts was at our November meeting.  There were almost 30 participants and everyone seemed to enjoy making it.  It was amazing how different fabrics create totally different looks for each quilt.  It's 54 x 70.

You can see how the melon fabric creates links that connect diagonally across the quilt

I used white thread and 3 different sizes of circle templates for the quilting.  The teal background fabric has circles, so I thought the quilting would bring that forward.  And they soften all those angles.

The backing is from my stash. 

 Actually - I think it's a piece my Mom gave me when she was cleaning out stuff.

Bonnie's Mini-Marathon

Bonnie is one of my golf friends, but she is also a runner.  She ran the Indy Mini-Marathon (13.1 miles) 20 times and saved all of her shirts.  She entrusted them to me to create this quilt for her.  She wanted them in chronological order, so the dates line up across the rows.  It's 70 x 85

The designs are all long, so I needed to add some width but not length.  That's why the sashing is only vertical, and not horizontal.

I used a white thread to quilt and used an pantograph that has swirls and spikey flowers.

The backing fabric is the same as the sashing and the binding.

Barb's Brown & Turquoise

Barb pieced this fabulous top.  I see another element every time I look at it. 

 It's 108 x 108 and is a wedding gift for a family member.

There are the obvious turquoise stars, but between and around them are 16 brown stars that are very subtle.  There are cream/brown blocks around the outside that create a border, and another block in each corner.  The batik fabrics add so much more movement to the quilt.  There is a narrow cream border around the outside that is hard to see under the brown binding that I applied to the front so she only has to hand stitch it to the back.

The small turquoise angle pieces create a circle around the stars:

I used 5 different colors of thread - 3 browns, the cream and turquoise

The cream thread creates a square-in-a-square pattern around a brown 4-patch

All of the diamonds were quilted with 2 hooks and stitch-in-the-ditch around them, 

with a line 1/2 inch away in the side angles

There are double connecting curves in the brown squares

The center square of the stars have a square in the middle, and curved lines around the edges

The brown stars were so subtle that I added a turquoise line along the edges to give them just a little pop

The corner blocks have just enough quilting to enhance them

The borders have scrips e's and l's to soften all of the points and angles in the quilt.  The 2 narrow cream borders have a wiggly line just to fill it enough to keep it from popping out too much.

The backing is a great batik that makes the turquoise on the front rally dominant.  The busy back hides most of the different color quilting threads.

Martha's blue birds and notes

Martha pieced this using lots of different fabrics, but the focal one is the musical notes.  One of the blue print fabrics has bluebirds - hence the notes.   It's 62 x 77, and I used a variegated blue thread.

Lots of different fabrics:

Focal Fabric:

I quilted an all-over pattern with different musical notes:

The backing is plain white, so the quilting really shows:

Quilt of Valor

Becky from my quilt guild pieced this.  She always does an awesome job.  It's 60 x 72.  

She bought a printed panel that has eagles and stars and printed slogans. 

 They are throughout the quilt.  I quilted a simple outline around the slogans and eagles, with large and small loops in the border fabrics

slogan framed in red

eagle framed in navy

stars and eagles left in a strip for borders

The white border has a zig zag line, and the navy border has a meander.

The outer blue border has large and small loops, with a meander and stars in the red border:

The backing is a great blue stripe:

Joan's medallion

Joan hand-pieced this beautiful quilt and did a fabulous job.  I love the colors she chose.  I didn't even realize it was hand pieced until I took it back to her. 

 It's 92 x 92, and I used 5 different colors of thread.

There are 4 center blocks on-point that are the same, and 4 in the corners that are the same.  

The rest of them are all different.

Here are the center blocks with green sashings between.  I quilted a small feather circle in the center, with line dancing and hooks in the rest.  The sashings have a wiggly line.

I quilted line dancing and hooks in the 4 corner blocks:

There is a floral block that separates the others, and I quilted a feathered wreath in each of those:

One of the remaining blocks - line dancing and hooks - 

There is a tan and pink border around the center blocks.  I followed the pattern of the cream paisleys in the tan border, and put large and small loops in the pink:

The  next center border is green, and I put feathers in there:

I added feathers in the setting and corner triangles:

corner triangle

setting triangle

Next comes an outer green border, then a floral one.  The green has loops like the pink, and a simple meander in the floral since not much else would show:

The outer border is full of swirly feather.  I love how they came out.  They really make the quilt.  I pre-marked the vine, but the feathers are all free hand 

The backing is the same as the pink on the front.