Quilts From VHPA

  Vietnam Helicopter Pilot's reunion, San Antonio TX, July 3-7, 2023

Each summer my DH's Military group, Vietnam Helicopter Pilots, meets to visit and celebrate their continuing lives. About 15 years ago another wife Kathleen Sherfy and myself began to make quilts in red, white and blue celebrating our beautiful USA Flag, the Stars and Stripes. These are presented to a few soldiers each year, I think the first year we had only two or three, and now each year we have 8-10. The names are drawn randomly, but a couple of years ago I looked around at the presentation and saw the quilter's husbands sitting there watching other guys get quilts and thought it was sad they didn't have quilts too. So I told Kathleen I was making one for DH, and last summer in San Antonio I was able to surprise him at the presentation with his very own patriotic quilt. To say he was shocked would be putting it mildly!

It's been a very rough 3 years for him in his fight to recover from cancer, radiation and around a dozen major surgeries including last March a month in the hospital and six surgical procedures. I said when I presented the quilt that I wanted him to know he was still my hero. The ranks of these men are shrinking every year and we are blessed to have DH still with us, he is a tough guy to survive what he has. This year we have been married 52 years.

This past summer I also made T Shirt quilts for our great niece and nephew who were graduating High School. Unfortunately I don't have good photos of them but next time we are in Boston I will be sure to take some! This one is Emily's,  at this stage it isn't even trimmed or bound!

Here is Daniel's, before it was even quilted! I have no idea where my head was that I didn't take my usual pics of the finished quilts. I do remember taking photos of the quilts in Boston after the graduations, laid out on the billiard table, so where are those photos?? Duh!

Last spring Matthew was Confirmed at our church, an important day for him in his life as a maturing Christian. We were all very happy to see him take this big step forward.

Matthew has been attending worship with us from about one year old and has progressed through all the Sunday School grades where I was the assistant in class, and through first Communion and three years of Confirmation studies every Sunday, so at 14 he was well prepared for this next step, growing into an adult in his Faith.

Filling in the past (nearly) 2 years!

Above another military themed quilt for a Gold Star family whose loved one died in the Vietnam conflict.The striped band on top is the Vietnam Ribbon worn by those who served during the Vietnam War.

Below, a quick all-over for my friend Sueann, she made it for a friend’s baby girl. I thought the color combo quite different but they were the mom’s choice!

             Below,  a sample of my experimenting with the Embroidery Model that came with the Bernina 765 I purchased about a year ago. I will take it to my friend Linda when I visit in Sept/Oct.                                             

 

I did quilt this small lap quilt, but cannot find the pic, Matthew’s mom asked me to make it for her GMA in NZ.

Another little embroidery experiment for my visit to CO.

I was asked to make new paraments for the altar at our church for Easter, and this is a result of the embroidery experiments!   

             And this miniature Dear Jane made by my friend Shiela, took a third place at the AZ Quilter’s Show last year. I had quilted it in tiny detail, every 3.5” block differently and it was a lot of fun making it up as I went along. 81 blocks no two the same, a labor of love- I would never have the patience or ability to hand sew all those little blocks. Unknown to me Shiela had entered it and I was quite surprised when another friend sent me this pic with the word “congratulations” . The two ribbons were both for Shiela’s beautiful hand piecing/applique and for my quilting.  I was quite excited , I never bother entering my own quilts in shows anymore so this was a lovely surprise.

It's Going To Take A While!

Because it’s been a while, I have been shut out for so long and unable to post and even now I am not sure how I did it🤷‍♀️ Blogger is the least helpful in fact non existent, no thanks, Google!! I only hope I can manage to figure it out again. Now there is so much to cover to get current I barely know where to begin but since this is a mostly quilting blog  I will go forward from the last quilts I posted.

In May of 2022 I completed the quilting of a queen size (81x101”) BOM a client made for her daughter’s wedding. Cannot remember the name now, but it’s an unusual BOM with many different sized blocks and the maker even included a few photos of the couple prior to the wedding.

          

It would include too many more photos to show the entire quilt but you get the idea, I hope, it was a big job inventing the quilting design for each block as I went along!

                 The quilt above came from my friend Linda in CO.Springs, just fast freehand feathers

The following are Quilts Of Valor made for the annual presentation at Vietnam Helicopter Reunion of which my DH is a member.

I quilted this one and the quilt below, I usually quilt 2 or 3 each year for this organization. The quilters who make them are all wives of members.

                         And here a group of happy recipients, an emotional time for them.

My friend Leslie in TX and I each made one of these together a couple of years ago-pre Wuhan Flu- and I just got around to quilting mine which now hangs in my studio.

                          The baby quilt for our youngest grandson, Owen Walter, born Jan.10th. 2023.

                                  Here with big brother Matthew and little sister Emma

He arrived in the world at a hefty 9lbs.6ozs. And 22” long. A whopper, LOL, especially for his 5ft.2” Mommy.

                                            
       I think I shall call it a day and begin a new post! Thanks for hanging in there with me, I am hoping to be much more efficient if only I can find my way back into this site to continue blogging.