Quilts of Valour Canada National Sew Day

Today is a sew day via zoom for Quilts of Valour Canada.  I didn't join the zoom group but I had a small kit of the Stonehenge QOV fabric which I had bought quite awhile ago when a QOV representative spoke at our guild.  The kit was supposed to make one pinwheel block with two fabrics.  However when I opened it up, there were three fabrics included:  a small piece of red text fabric and a small piece of Inukshuk fabric both about 6" x 10" and a larger piece of white and red text fabric about 10" by width of fabric.  I decided not to make the pinwheel block but went to the QOV website and found that one of their recommended blocks was a Friendship Star which would use three fabrics.  To make the most of my fabrics, I made 3" unfinished hst's which gave me an 8" unfinished block which I then bordered on two sides with more of the text print to make them 9 3/4" unfinished so that they could easily be trimmed to the required 9.5" by whoever receives them.  Here's the block I made.

Actually, I was able to make three Friendship Star blocks and with the leftovers I made a block that resembles the Canadian Flag.  Here are the four blocks I was able to make with the kit intended for only one block.

If you look closely at the Canadian flag block, it was an absolute coincidence but the right hand side of the flag includes the word PEACE.  If I get really ambitious, I may embroider the outline of a maple leaf on the flag.

These are all the scraps I had left.

Now I'm off to see if I jave some dark red embroidery floss to embroider a maple leaf.

Comfort Quilt for Quilts of Valour - Canada Society

As mentioned in this previous post, I quilted and bound a quilt for Quilts of Valour - Canada Society which was made from strip sets and backing donated by Mayflower Quilters' Guild members and sewn together into a top at a fun charity day of sewing at a local quilt shop.  This quilt will be given to an injured Canadian Forces Member in the Halifax Regional Municipality.  The quilt was shown at Show and Share at our Guild meeting last night so now I can show it here.

The quilt is scrappy, but I wanted to do some sort of Canadian themed free motion quilting on it.  After several pages of doodling, I finally came up with a design.  Since each rail fence block is made up of three strips and each is then joined to the next block turned 90 degrees, each side of the blocks are in effect marked in thirds. I used these "thirds" as guiding points for free motion quilting the design.  I figured out how to quilt a maple leaf on each rail fence block and how to end in order to keep going onto the next block and continue across the whole row without breaking thread.

I started in the upper left hand corner and sewed the outline of the leaf around the outside of the block until I was back at the same corner and then sewed a gently curving stem diagonally across the block and then I was ready to start a new maple leaf in the next block.  Here is an individual block showing the maple leaf quilting.

I was very pleased with how the quilting turned out!  Now I need to quilt another Quilt of Valour so I can use the design again!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

I Have a New Quilting Friend!

You may be wondering why the blog has been silent for a little over a week.  It's because I have a new retirement quilting friend and I have been getting to know them before introducing them.  I have graduated from using my domestic sewing machine which has a ten inch throat space on my quilting frame to now using a Q'nique 15R mid-arm which has fifteen inches of throat space.  After you subtract the space taken up by rolling up the quilt, I could quilt a five inch pattern on my domestic sewing machine.  Now I will be able to quilt a ten inch pattern.  Double the space!  Here is a picture of my new mid-arm.

My first project is a Quilt of Valour that the Guild I belong to put together during a recent charity sew day.  I am quilting it with free motion maple leaves by using the three strips of rail fence piecing to guide me.  Here is what one looks like on a rail fence block.

And here is the back.

I can't show the whole quilt until after it gets revealed at the next Mayflower Quilters' Guild meeting on Thursday.  I'm looking forward to lots of time using my new mid-arm!  I didn't have to put in a second bobbin until I was on the last row of the quilt.  Thank you Bryan for coming over last week on your day off to level my frame and help me get my mid-arm set up.  Opie was lots of help too!