Oct Meeting Recap

The CT Quilters have been working with donated Hearth and Home blocks across the USA.  These blocks were part of the Quilts of Valor Foundation's 2014 Challenge.  Here are some of the blocks and the ladies working on them:

And this was a lovely top made and donated by Pat this month:

September Meeting Recap

The ladies in the CT Quilters QOV Group have again outdone themselves.  You’ll agree when you see the fabulous quilts below.

Jelly Roll Race by Diana

 

Tops put together by Ginger from blocks sent to the QOVF for the Block Challenge.  Barb brought these blocks back from the QOVF Leadership Conference she and Jadene attended in Tennessee.  The block design is called Hearth and Home and many are signed or have messages.  Quilters across the nation have stitched over 6,500 blocks so far!  The block drive continues until Dec 31^st.  Block instructions are available at this link.

 Top made by Ginger in her series that she is making

 in honor of her husband, Roger, a Viet Nam veteran

 

Top made by Debbie (right) and quilted by Barb (left)

 

Mystery Top! 

  This fantastic design was dropped off at the shop and doesn’t have a label. 

  If you know the quilt piecer,

 please send us a comment and we will edit this post to give them credit…

And the ladies at work:

Our next meetings will be October 24^th and 27^th at 

the Crafty Threads Quilt Shop.  

All are welcome to join us – please come!

Recap of Quilts from Friday’s Meeting

Some great quilt tops and quilts were turned in at March’s Friday meeting of our Quilts of Valor group.  Enjoy the following show!

First the tops:

Sharon’s top using Northcott Fabric’s Star’s and Stripes panel:

Diana and Maria each made row quilt tops from kits that Debbie had put together.  Each has the US Air Force logo on it:

Diana also made a jelly roll quilt top:

Janice had three tops – one she called “retro” for its WWII fabric, one using an eagle panel, and one with curvy squares:

detail of above

Pam made two from a Fons & Porter pattern – don’t they look very different depending on the fabrics she used?!  Just plain gorgeous.

Kathy made the QOV Mystery – this pattern is Persimmon Quilts’ #16:

detail of above

 And Ginger made this wonderful quilt top as March’s tribute to Roger.  I'll try to get a closeup of the star blocks after it is quilted - they are intricate!

Second, we have the quilted items:

Pat B did a beautiful job with these - check out that detail photo below!

detail of Pat's quilting

Hope you enjoyed the show … maybe we’ll get to see you on Monday if you couldn’t be with us today!  Meeting at Crafty Threads from 10 - 4:00, Monday, March 24th ................... hope to see you then.

Recap of Feb Meetings – Part 2

Quilter’s know the generosity of other quilters – they give of their time, expertise and materials.  But Quilts of Valor quilters are blessed to know that they are embraced by the greater community, both locally and globally!

At our meeting on Friday, we were so pleased to hear this story from Maria, one of our own CT Quilters who is also a Flight Attendant for Delta Airlines:

            I was on a flight and sharing the story of Quilts of Valor and the quilts for the soldiers with a co-worker, when she pulled out a very generous cash donation for our Group!  I was so surprised.

We were stunned and so very thankful to receive the large donation from Charly, the Purser on Maria’s flight that day.  We were able to purchase yards and yards (and did I mention more yards?) of large pieces of fabric for much-needed quilt backs and blocks for our quilts.  Just check out how fat these big bundles are.  Charly, at least 5 soldiers will be wrapped and snuggled in the quilts we make from your donation.  Thank you so much!

And now for our local contributions:

Donna, a CT Quilter, made all of these pillowcase presentation packages – a big help since our stack was running low.  Your serger must have been smokin'.  Thank you, Donna!

Another CT Quilter, Jill, was able to bring in some very excellent fabric donations (also in large pieces) just at the right time.  We had tops stacked up that needed backs and this very large donation of fabric is just what we needed – these are enough for backs and strips for blocks and will go a long way towards making comforting Quilts of Valor.  Thank you so much, Jill, for keeping the QOV Group in mind when you were foraging on-line for fabric!

And a small group of 7 ladies in a nearby community selected us to be the recipient of their patriotic quilts.  Just look at these wonderful tops that two of the ladies, Nancy and Judy, brought in for donation!  Definitely a nice design – perfect for Quilts of Valor.  Just when you think it’s business-as-usual something magical happens and you know that our local and global communities care about our service personnel.  Thank you so much, ladies!

Another donation from Jill at Monday’s meeting, was this top based on the original Waving Old Glory pattern by Toby Lishchko.  Jill put in a sprinkle of the appliqué stars in the plain blocks that make this top sparkle!

And to finish off today’s post, here are two tops that were brought in that used up a bunch of the 4-patches leftover from our old design.

 

Debbie's patches

Kathy's patches

More on the productivity of the QOV members in tomorrow’s post – watch for Part 3 of the Meeting Recap posts!  And if you missed Part 1 – it is here: http://tinyurl.com/k4kwjhs

Recap of 11-15-13 Meeting

Let me tell you – our Quilts of Valor volunteers are just the BEST!  We were really settin’ the pedal to the metal this meeting.  We were so happy to welcome lots of new people and then we really got down to it…

We were cutting borders and blocks for our take-home kits, sewing blocks and hand sewing bindings and labels:

We were assembling kits:

We were sewing bindings onto quilted quilts and later making backings:

We were laying out blocks for tops, including this new design that uses 4-patches from our take-home kits:

We took in lots of fabric donations (a BIG thank you to many donors!! They came in fast but I managed to capture the names of Donna P-W, Debbie W., Gale and Kathy B. for this post):

We had some great quilts and quilt tops come in:

 

Debbie (L) with her quilt #1

Debbie (L) with her quilt #2 and Diana peeking out helping to hold!

Pat (L) helping hold Lisa's (R) Curved Log Cabin center - borders will be added to bring it to QOV size and Lisa will be quilting it - it's gorgeous already!

We had lots of pillowcase presentation packages come in:

And we had two wall-hanging size donated to go to a special VA destination (more on that later:

 

Pat (L) and Renita (R) holding the wallhanging top that Renita's friend Kathy donated

The second wallhanging-size donated by Kathy that will be finished by Pat

And the quilts, already matched up and in their pillowcase presentation packages, are stacking up and getting ready to go to their forever homes:

We were also able to meet another volunteer longarm quilter and her husband – who drove a considerable distance to get to us today.  Pat B. has been quilting for Quilts of Valor for some time and the CT Quilters are thrilled to begin an association with her.  We also received back another quilt back in from another volunteer longarmer, Virginia, but I'm sorry I didn't get a photo to post.  It has been sent home to be hand bound by another volunteer.  We want to thank our longarm coordinator, Sharon, for keeping track and making contacts for us.  We now have lots of quilts in the pipeline – we like to keep our longarmers busy!

Thank you so very much – both to the ladies that were able to attend our meeting and to our many, many volunteers who pick up our kits at the Crafty Threads Quilt Shop and bring us back sewn blocks.  YOU are what makes it all happen!

We’re looking forward to next month – we will have a regular working session in the morning and then break for a Potluck Lunch at the shop.  Put Friday, Dec 20^th on your calendars now since this busy season tends to book up quickly – you won’t want to miss this next meeting!