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.

TheQuilt Studio

  Welcome to my super duper, extraordinary, stuff of my dreams new Quilt Studio

 Work on our 700sq.ft. addition is coming close to a final finish! We delayed the start until November last because of the insanity of covid regulations and how they changed from one day to the next. Of course the price more than doubled from the day before covid hit, but now we are almost finished and hoping the budget will hold out as prices rise weekly on building supplies. Fortunately we have a wonderful General Contractor which is such a blessing. However his family had the Wuhan flu and then he injured his foot which has kept him off work a bit though it’s hard to keep him down!

The Giant Star QOV

I choose to dedicate a lot of time to these Quilts Of Valor, believing that our military risks everything for us and I will not offer anything less than my best to them. 

The only blocks that are the same in this quilt are the large triangles on each side, I thought it was more balanced keeping them alike.

      After the first corner square I decided I would be too bored making them all the same!

                     And since I had begun with the stars I made stars in each one.

                     The star points have alternating swirls and peacock feathers.

               Feathers are my default motif, and I like the contrast of straight lines.

Also I admit I love the creative freedom of making it up as I go along so I never know how the design will look until it's finished. I used Quilters Dream 80/20 batting and a neutral thread. I'm very happy with the Giant Star quilt, it was fun to quilt and tomorrow they both return to the quilter who will bind and label them.

A New Great granddaughter

 The Atwood girls are finally catching up! Watch out world these amazing women are the next generation!Annelyse June Atwood arrived a little early as is usual for her very prompt Momma! Both of her siblings were a couple of weeks early also. Weighing in at 6lbs.14 ozs. And 21.25 inches long she is just perfect. I will post a photo as soon as I get one! She joins sister Paisley and brother Sterling.                                                                      Her quilt is below in Ashlee’s requested colors, pink and teal.

A bright and delightful quilt for our newest baby girl. Congratulations to Mom Ashlee and proud Daddy Daniel. You are doing a great job populating the world with smart, wonderful human beings.

Another baby quilt for a baby girl due next month for extended family members. Mom’s requested colors for Isla Sofia’s quilt are sage/cactus green/tan and dusty pink, I really had no appropriate greens so of course I had to go fabric shopping. 

This is a different version of the pink and grey quilt from earlier this month. The 5” squares go together fast and the pink applique flowers, flange and binding make it definitely feminine.

I don’t know of any other babies on the immediate horizon so I may be onto other challenges next.

In fact I am already, tasked with quilting more QOV’s-Quilts f Valor- for our military heroes. These two are for the VHPA-Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association reunion in May. DH is a long-standing member of the organization as a retired helicopter and fixed wing pilot. 

One done and one more to go. I typically custom quilt QOV’s especially when there are wide open spaces like this. The feather wreaths are always impressive and are fast and easy to quilt. I have also become a fan of ruler quilting, I think it’s a nice contrast to the detailed feathers.

                                     The simple one color backing shows off the detailed quilting.

                              The second is very different and I am still deciding how I will quilt it.

Maybe alternate a couple of different background fills in each star point and a different design in the white areas. I am thinking about it and hope to begin tomorrow after the gym. I will probably include some ruler work, it’s a good foil for the detailed designs.

This is my first week back at the gym since I went to Boston and got the Wuhan flu variant and double pneumonia, so I am still working back into my usual routine. It will take a few weeks I imagine, but my body is accustomed to being fit and that always makes it easier to come back.

Meantime our addition is coming along quickly now, the opening to the main house has been made so the move-in date is close, a couple of weeks at most I hope. When it’s finished it will appear as if it’s always been there rather than an obvious add-on. I will post a few photos next time so you can get an idea of the 700 sq.ft. space.

Log Cabin Beads

 This beautiful quilt came from Texas and I love it enough to want to make one too! It took me a few days to figure out how I wanted to quilt it but it really needed custom and the feather wreaths in the beads were easy but oh those circles took me a very long time using different sizes of templates.

It was worth it for the effect, I cannot allow anything to leave my hands unless it pleases my critical eye!

Separate borders finish the look with a reverse feather outer border

The backing makes the quilt reversible and shows the quilting better.

I had lots of plans for Christmas quilting but life got in the way and I only made two small projects, this little paper pieced tree for myself and an angel tryptich for a friend. 

                            My tree is missing something, I think it needs some red ornaments! 

And I guess I forgot to take a picture of the angels, and I was so sure that I had!!

These next four quilts were for our great grandchildren and they are what took up all my pre-Christmas quilting time! At that point we had two girls and one boy.

Their birthdays are October, November and December so a decision has been made to have one party in November for all three.

Paisley was four in October and got the horse quilt. Poppa has a little pony for the grandkids and she loves to ride.

Here it is spread out on our KS bed.

                                                An asymmetrical pieced backing using stash!

  Paisley and brother Sterling, three in December, share a bedroom with bunk beds, their quilts are generous single bed size. Sterlingling loves everything dinosaur so of course his quilt had to be-dinosaurs!

Sterling was the only one whose quilt required the purchase of more fabric than just the panel. I really had nothing in stash that would coordinate with the dinosaur panel but I was fortunate to have appropriate fabric for the backing in stash.

Layla was three in November and like many little girls is all about princesses! She is on the petite side so her quilts fit a youth bed. I was fortunate to find panels for all three children’s quilts and added borders of coordinating fabrics, mostly from stash.

                                                                    Layla’s backing

                                                                   Love this picture. 

Layla got very lucky this year because I made two more quilts for her to keep at her Mom’s house. More Princesses, but this time from the movie Frozen which little girls also seem to adore! If you look closely you can see I chose to crosshatch the picture part of the panel. I have found this is a neater option than trying to outline the quilt realistically and to me looks as if you are peering through a window at the people. And, by careful positioning of the quilting lines it’s possible to mostly avoid quilting on the faces.                                          

Another panel and how sweet that I had just the right fabrics to coordinate with the panel and also to make the backing. I do a happy dance when I can rotate my fabrics to make room for the current purchases!

 All the children’s quilts were custom quilted, the panels make that necessary I think.

One more little quilt, a small ”drag around/lay on the floor” quilt for Layla to take to Mom’s house, just so she knows Great Grandmother loves her wherever she is!

                                                                  

I am struggling and in a time wasting mode because I am not familiar with working off my iPad Pro in Blogger and it is a lot different to the laptop, but my laptop is a dinosaur 13 year old MacBook. It has no blue tooth and cannot connect wirelessly with my other Mac devices so pictures from the iPhone and iPad Pro do not seamlessly populate in the iPhoto album! I also haven’t discovered how to edit pics in Blogger yet on the iPad other than enlarging them, another irritation. Obviously I need to update, probably with a small desktop since I have the iPad for portability. However life has got in the way, but I am at least now looking into coming up to scratch! The drag around quilt, just right size for a tiny 3 year old girl to carry around!

A couple of photos her Mom sent me I can add- Mom says she is “Obsessed with them. Quite literally” which makes Great Grandmother’s heart happy!     

                           In AZ the room will need to be chilled for the summer,LOL.