Quilt of Valor

I made this from a kit that my QOV group put together.  I looks fussy but it pretty easy.

There are blocks that are alternate colors that I put together in rows

I used a panto that has lots of stars for the quilting, using a red/white/blue variegated thread.

I used up lots of bigger pieces, as well as left over blocks, for the backing.  The binding has been put on and is waiting for someone else to flip to the back.

Quilt of Valor

Virginia from my Quilt of Valor group pieced this lovely top.  It's 82 x 82.  I did custom quilting on it - as it deserves, using a cream thread in the background areas, and a red/white/blue variegated thread in the red and blue areas.

The block is 15" with lots of parts.   

There are half-square triangles:

9-patches:

and plain squares

The rest of the quilt has stripes:

and checkerboard

I quilted lots of connecting curves and wiggly lines:

There is a 3" plain border in which I quilted squares to carry the checkerboard theme:

The back is plain red, with a piece of patriotic print on one side.  

This print was also used for the binding

The red is really much darker - as seen on the side of the photo below

Patty's Memories

Patty lost her husband about a year ago, and she had me make 6 quilts from his clothing.  One for herself and her 2 adult children, and 3 for her grandkids.  The adults got a throw size, and the grandkids got crib sized.

I used 3 different patterns for each of the large quilts, and the same 3 patterns, but with smaller pieces, in the crib quilts.  All the pieces are 2" wide, but in the bigger quilts they are 6" long, and 4" long in the smaller quilts.  There was enough denim left that I was able to put a border on Patty's, and on 2 sides of her kids.

Patty's

Jen's

Jason's

The 3 crib size:

Ella's

Piper's

Julian's

She had the clothes sorted for each quilt.  They all have t-shirt logos from the Chicago major professional teams - Blackhawks, Bulls, Bears, and White Sox.  (sorry Cubs fans...) There are also t-shirts with the logo of the company he worked for.  There were also pockets from his jeans.  The adult quilts got the pockets with the red tag and logo, and the 3 crib quilts are plain pockets:

Patty's has the pocket and embroidered logo from his company that were on a denim shirt:

He enjoyed golf, fishing, and gambling, so she had me use those fabrics in the backing.

All 3 fabrics were used in each quilt. The large quilts have an extra strip of the clothing pieces to provide the necessary width

I quilted a simple meander in the smaller quilts, and a meander with loops in the larger ones.  I used a medium grey thread in all 6.

Karen's Flower Patch

Karen pieced this fabulous top using Judi Madsen's pattern "Flower Patch".  I had made it several years ago, (see mine here) and Karen liked the pattern so much that she made one for herself.

She used fabulous Kaffe Fassett fabrics for the flowers.  They are always bright and have big flowers.  She used black and white as the outer border of the flower blocks to really make them pop.  

There are no 2 alike.

I quilted hooks in the body of the flowers, and connecting curves in the black/white borders.  Then a dense fill in the background to really make the flowers pop.

I quilted another connecting curve pattern in the frames around the two flowers that are on stems.

In the borders, I did hooks in the smaller pieces, and double hooks in the larger pieces

The first border is a black and white printed fabric that looks like it's pieced.  I simply followed the lines between designs to make it look there are seams.  

You can see this border in the full picture - I didn't get one of just the border.

Karen added another border at the bottom of the quilt for some extra length.  She used all these fabulous fabrics to make a piano key border. 

 I quilted a hook with a spike on top in each of the piano keys

The back is even fun