The Patriotic Row Quilt

For the last two years or so, I have been feeling inspired to make a quilt for a veteran.  There are several great organizations that present veterans - particularly wounded vets - with quilts, and I've just felt like it was something I wanted to be part of.  However, Quilts of Valor, which is the easiest to find info about, also has a size requirement that made the project seem a little daunting.  This year, my guild is collecting ANY size patriotic quilts for a different group called Miracle Quilts, which caught my attention.

Last summer, Mom's sewing group was collecting lap-size quilts for a group, and she bought fabric to make two of them.  (Which I helped with, and it occurs to me that I may not have ever posted those pictures - will have to check on that!)  We had some leftover fabrics, and I set a goal of making a quilt that would use up at least one of the fabrics.

Based on the size of leftover pieces, some kind of row quilt seemed my best bet, and that led me to decide to do it quilt-as-you-go which I wanted to try.  I cut all the pieces out, and had about 6 square inches left of the fabric I was trying to use up;  DD was happy to take it to cut up and make a picture with it so it is all gone!  I took all the pieces with me to my guild's charity sewing day last month, and DD came along to help.  I did the sewing; she was in charge of keeping all the pieces laid out correctly and also the ironing.  (I brought a travel iron and a mini board, which was just right for her.  At least 3 people asked if they could take her home with them to do their ironing!)  We got all the rows put together and ready to be assembled before we had to leave to go to DS's Pinewood Derby.

At home, I added all the rows (one ended up needing some quilting afterwards, as it was too large of an open area.  Then I decided to use the backing to wrap around and make the binding - which mostly went well but I need to work on how I do the corners.  I added a little top-stitching with some variegated thread to finish it off, and the whole thing is now ready to go to guild next month and hopefully will make someone feel warm in more than one way!

 Corners, wrap around binding, top-stitching with variegated thread:

The medium blue with starts fabric is all used up.

  I also added lines of stitching in the long blue strips:

Overall, I'm quite pleased with this quilt, enjoyed making it, and even tried some new things which (mostly) worked like they were supposed to!