Blue Star Mothers

We held a packing party along with the AMVETS and sent 71 boxes overseas to our soldiers.

I presented this Quilt of Valor to one of the AMVETS, Bob Aldrich, and he was quite touched.

Here's a photo of just the quilt:

The center is a panel I purchased in Shipshewana and I added a small border, Quilt In A Day Flying Geese and then 2 more borders. The backing is US Navy fabric as that is the branch that Bob served in.
Stars and Loops panto, Hobbs 80/20 batting and Lite Chambray PermaCore thread.

BSM quilts

My Blue Star Mothers group came together to provide Christmas for a Monticello family. These boys lost their dad in Afghanistan and are living with their grandparents.

I offered to make lap quilts for them and I picked out the fabrics, two that like fishing and one that likes police cars, another Blue Star Mother, Rose, started piecing the strips and she made the pillowcases.

I finished the centers and added borders, quilted and bound them.

Police car pillowcase

There isn't a lot of police car fabric out there, but I did find this fleece for the backing.

Fishing Quilt #1 - not a very good photo :(

And pillowcase

Fishing Quilt #2

Pillowcase #2

Both fishing quilts have the same flannel backing.

Makes me feel good to know that I helped provide a family some gifts to give them comfort and keep them warm.

Thanks to Mary for this great pattern: Quick Strippie

What's Going On Around Here?

Not really a question, just a few things to blog about. I've been very bad about blogging lately.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Indy to attend the Indiana Blue Star Salute. I've never attended this event, but I'm told it will be a fun day.

I got this fabric cut up to make another quilt. Here's a peek at them before the stitching started.

Speaking of peeks....here's a peek at Laura's baby shower quilt. She had attendees write out their sentiments and then she embroidered them, exactly as written. What a cute idea!! What a lot of work, but so worth it.

Design Wall Monday

Nothing at all up on the wall, but the tables are full of snap bags.
My Blue Star Mothers group is having a booth at a nursing home this weekend and I'm making snap bags to sell.

Here are the finished ones, made from prequilted fabric. Now that was easy!!

Here are the ones that just need to be stitched up the side, and finished with straps.

Here are the ones that are quilted and trimmed only.

I stitched the fabrics together and loaded them on the longarm to quilt. Now that was easy too!!

Blue Star Mothers Packing Party

Yesterday we got together at Luana's house to pack boxes for 67 of our military family and friends currently deployed. We had a great time, shared lots of laughs, and a couple bottles of wine. With donations from a Harley Group, stockings from Common Threads quilt Guild, cute jars of BBQ sauce, toiletries donated from Janet and Kathy, we were able to fill those boxes full.

What a fast weekend!

I can't believe the weekend is over already. I guess I got a lot accomplished, but not a lot of quilting.

The Blue Star Moms garage sale made over $300, which will help pay the postage for over 20 packages to deployed military from the area. It was really nice to spend the day with Luana, Becky and Mary. We got to know each other a little better and it's so good to know that someone else is going through the same emotions, regarding a child in the military.

We had an open house today so Saturday evening and this morning were filled with dozens of last minute things to do. Two of the visiters talked about bringing their spouses back for a look. Let's hope they do!

My design wall still looks like it did here, two weeks ago, as I haven't started anything else because I didn't want to mess up my sewing room. See, it's still tidy!

Blue Star Moms

I'm off to work at the Blue Star Moms garage sale in Monticello this morning. It's next to Arni's if you're in the area.

Have a great day!

Dora Flannel

On Friday I got an email saying that the Blue Star Mothers group was providing some Christmas for 2 children who's dad is deployed. One of them is a four year old girl who likes Dora and her mom asked for a blanket. Well, I didn't have any Dora fabric, but Joann's did and it is flannel, so it's very, very soft. I assembled the top on Friday evening and loaded it and started the quilting. I finished the quilting last night and did the binding today. Then, I decided that she needed a pillowcase to match. They are both washed, dried and ready to go the the Blue Star Moms Cookie Brigade this evening.




I baked about 8 dozen cookies this morning to take also. I didn't mix them, just took them out of the plastic tubs and baked them. I do just love those fundraising tubs of cookie dough.

Blue star Banners

Last night I presented a class at Rossvillle Quilts on making quilted blue star banners to 3 students. We all got them quilted and they are ready to attach their binding. Those who have a family member with someone in the service will give it to them. Anyone that doesn't have a need for it will give it to me for distribution in our local support group.

The pattern we used is from quilterscache.com and they went together very easily. The class was only 2 hours and I got there late because of traffic, so you can see that it is a quick gift to make.

I sandwiched mine and stitched around the outside, leaving an opening for turning and then quilted it. I have made them the other way, but wanted to try this way. It worked great and I will probably make more of them this way.

Back to the Sewing Room

Seems like I haven't sewed for a very long time, but today I got some time in. Tammy came over and we put together this quilt top. My sewing room is a little small for 2 quilters, but we managed OK.



This quilt, Liberty Stars by Jan Ragaller and distributed by Penny Candy Press, when finished, will be our donation to the silent auction at the Freedom Festival in Crawfordsville on September 6th. We both are members of the West Central Chapter of the Blue Star Mothers and even though I won't be able to attend (cause I'll be at quilt camp---YEA), Tammy will be there.

We had to run to Joanns today and we picked up some cute patriotic items for the auction also that were 70% off. I got this bird house and Tammy got a house that lights up.