Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

I was so inspired by the girls' reaction to that quilt "Cats a Blankie" last week (the red one with red and white cat border that looks upside-down when it's rightside-up). Yeah! Anyhow, I thumbed through a 6-inch stack of mixed postage stamp squares I have cut out, no two alike, and found a bazillion more red postage stamps I don't even have to cut out! Put them in a dozen plus squares, then used 12 of the squares in the quilt so a child at the shelter can have his or her own quilt.

I had some peppermint red and white stripe stuff left over, and found some red filigree Jacobean butterfly and flower fabric to border the quilt among my souvenirs. It doesn't have the kick the Cats-a-blankie had because I accepted other colors like pink, a black outline or dot here and there, green leaves, etc., rather than the start red-and-white that went into Cats-a-blankie. Here's what came off the scanner:

I'm done with another red 5-patch quilt for charity!

 

[freedombecki]

On Memorial Day, I finished 20 green squares, hit a really fantastic sale at Wallyworld, and bought a bright lime green to cut and place around the squares. This morning, I took the green squares, framed by the lime green, and placed them next to my stacks of green fabric. It really said come hither to of all things a plain solid green, and this set of pictures doesn't really do the zing it has any justice, it's all I have, considering my dismal luck with a camera and recourse of laying stuff on a scanner screen and risking it looking cattywumpus...

 

[freedombecki]

A USMB member, SFC Ollie, had two unknown soldiers buried in 2 unmarked graves in the cemetery near where he lives. This bothered this extraordinary gentleman, so he researched through ages-old data and found the two plots' deeds. Now, a Shipley family and a Mendel family have been notified, and the appropriate service for the two soldiers was held posthumous, who knows how many decades later on Memorial Day with both families represented. The above link is to the local news station's news of the service.

This morning, when I got up to do quilts, I found some pretty blue squares left over from earlier military projects and a yard and a half of Army Medallion fabric I found a few months back, just sitting there, and me thinking, I'll use that someday... (not even a vague plan in mind). So I am dedicating this quilt to a wounded veteran at the H.E.A.R.T.S. museum in the name and honor of SFC Ollie. How blessed we are to have him among us here at USMB reminding us gently of the Constitution and Military laws men must obey in their service to the people of the United States when they enter the armed services.

My hat tips to USF Ollie, and anyone who reads this is welcome to go over to the USMB Coffee Shop where Ollie is to be seen occasionally serving up a remembrance, a good laugh, an American Legion meeting, or visitation to a family of a soldier who has passed, who served in any branch of the service in his community of veterans. In this post, I am showing bits and pieces of the quilt I made and completed this morning, to be handed to the ladies who quilt and tie quilts for the H.E.A.R.T.S.(Helping Every American Remember Through Service) museum which is located off I-45 and is in Huntsville, Walker County, Texas, and is not too far away from my little great egret sanctuary and farm (also possums, crows, redhead woodpeckers, cardinals, jays, scarlet tanagers, mockingbirds, and every warbler specie in the USA, it seems.) God sure did bless America when he gave us SFC Ollie.

Picture 1 Top of quilt showing ARMY border
Picture 2 Light blue dorner between dark blue Hero Star points
Picture 3 One of 8 hero star points

 

[freedombecki]

Picture 4 Part of Center of Hero Star Army Quilt
Picture 5 Another Part of Center of Hero Star Army Quilt
Picture 6 Portion of side of Hero Star Army Quilt to give to wounded soldier in SFC Ollie's honor.

God bless our dear troops, every one of them.

 

[freedombecki]

Here's some pics of a quilt I made recently but think, I finished several in a 3-day block and just forgot to include this one. It's really pale, like for a baby. Hopefully, It will go with my 10 quilt tops for June to the quilter's closet for Charity Bees soon.

Time for Stories Quilt scans:

 

[freedombecki]

Time for Stories Scans II

 

[freedombecki]

Even more Time for Stories...

The last frame is a pair of joined Windmills I'm adding to my current work in progress--a "Patriotic Windmills" quilt. I worked 8 hours on it yesterday, then found the pair of red windmills the same size that were left over from a project last year, I think. If I run out of squares, I can gently rip the joining seams out and alternate these with the blue windmills, too. If not... pillow top!

 

[freedombecki]

After working on this 3 days, I did all I could in 5 hours. I have a lot of blocks, but only sewed a dozen before I got too tired to work. I think I have a virus coming on. For fibromyalgiacs like me, that means to take it easy or else. So here I be, to at least show some progress for today. There are enough to make 2 hugs quilts or one college dorm quilt.

I've done the pinwheel in quilts before, just not in this format of red white and blue. I did a dominant blue background of them three or four years ago for our church for Fourth of July. The cross was red.

This one is dispersive red and blue, every other, throughout. After I rest for a couple of days, I'll get back to it. It would take a day apiece if I made red pinwheels all around the two small quilts, and at least, they'd be a little bigger. That is a lot of work, just sayin'.

 

[freedombecki]

RWB (red, white, blue) Pinwheel Quilt, 4, 5, & 6:

 

[freedombecki]

I hurt so went to bed early last night, and it always follows to get up early and sit in front of my sewing machine. I got all the loose ends together, used up half the blocks I'd been sewing for the last few days, and finished up yesterday's start, that I just had to set aside due to aching. It's nothing to worry about, and not near as bad as years past when doing nothing was the only option (ugh!)

My husband reminded me the garage was full of fabric boxes from the Church closet, so I used a fabric from one of the boxes to add to the quilt. I had to really piece the oddball shapes together to get the first border, then there was almost (but not quite) half a yard to the other 3 sides of the quilt. It now measures by my guess, 41 or 42 by about 54 inches, give or take an inch. It was a windowpane background with little rockets in red blue and green on white. I hated to add green to a red white and blue quilt, but I wanted to let my husband know his wishes are still more important than anything else I do. And it finished all that work up okay, hopefully, although I hate working with blends when they take on a smell under the iron, and they have practically zero give, unlike my dear cottons. What I do for love.

Now, I have to go assemble the remaining squares and see what is left to do to get another similar quilt finished, although it may be larger than this one is.

Here's the border, and that's a wrap:

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, I've been at the machine sewing up a storm and completed another windmills quilt, this time I used two borders. It's so much easier when you did all your homework in the last two days to get things to a point where you can just quickly join and border the work and call it a <hugs> quilt for a poor baby.

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, I've been at the machine sewing up a storm and completed another windmills quilt, this time I used two borders. It's so much easier when you did all your homework in the last two days to get things to a point where you can just quickly join and border the work and call it a <hugs> quilt for a poor baby.

Sometimes the red white and blue ones are routed to veterans who were wounded or suffered egregious loss of limb(s) in an IED. The Charity Bees just give to whoever has the greatest need in the community.

One other item is our friend SFC Ollie has been MIA around the coffee shop, and we don't know what happened. His wife has been so ill he remodeled his house so she could be nearer the kitchen. Since it is not like him not to show up in the am and pm, I am hoping for word from him soon. It could be one of them had to go to the hospital for more treatments, or he just needed some down time from hosting the entire city on Memorial Day at the cemetary to honor the two veterans whose unmarked graves were recovered and families were located. One veteran's grave held a soldier from WWI, and the other buried who served in WWII, forgotten and now found. Both families are thankful for this wonderful kindly act by SFC Ollie, and here's the tv announcement from the festivities on Memorial Day:

Video Landing Page - 21 News Now, More Local News for Youngstown, Ohio -
​

 

[freedombecki]

Continuation of 590 ~

I hadn't seen this fabric for at least 2years, when I was looking for something else. It was one of my favorite all-time patriotic border fabrics for just about every other soldier quilt I made after our war conflict began after 9/11/2001. It reminded me of Colonial times and what America is all about since George Washington asked Betsy Ross to complete a 13-star flag with her renowned sewing skills as well as her love for America. Anyway, I realized it would bring a little class back to my tacky-bordered pinwheel quilt with goofy rockets that can look either upside down, right side up and a little cockeyed, too, on that dark blue windowpane plaid on white. So, for what it's worth, Here's the fabric that fixed everything, I just hadn't seen it for so long, I'd forgotten about it. I had a yard and a half to work with, and enough left over to border one more quilt. It took exactly half of the fabric, as the end of the bolt had a white sticker on it that I never could get off, so I had to cut around it first to make things right. So I have some more of my favorite-all time Colonial fabric to play with this year, then it will be gone. I'll have to host a wake when that happens. (joke, to non-quilters).

I just had to fix it. It just wasn't right.

Anyway, here it is:

 

[freedombecki]

Fixing the insufferably-bordered quilt wasn't all for the day. I may have posted a blurb of red patches left over from those last two or three red quilts made for shelter/troops, etc. and realized it would be the perfect center for a quilt I had logs left over from yet other charity quilts. I aligned the extra-large log cabin squares (sewed an extra set of logs to all 4 sides) to form a friendship star, but had used all the "dark" squares on a light-dark star quilt either last year or very early this year. So here are bits and pieces of the quilt I completed by adding another row of red squares to the center block to make it fit the log cabin star points. What a joy to clear half a pound of fabric off my sewing table that was sewn into this quilt, too. The red Minnie Mouse dot you've seen before if you have been following this thread was used on this quilt, because after I slept on it, I knew it wasn't right for the tacky rocket border on that quilt I finally DID find the right piece of cloth to border. Someday, I'm just going to throw quilts together and ignore all rules and smarts. But until that day, I'll slog on through my little retentive stage of perfection according to my subjectivity of the minute.

The 81 - 1.25" small squares in the center begged for red on the outside border, so conveniently, I used the minnie mouse dress polka dot that was all ready to put on the other tacky quilt.

Here's my big-hearted Friendship Star quilt, fragmented but scanned true:

 

[freedombecki]

Four-pointed Big-hearted Friendship Star Log Cabin, Second group of scans.

Thanks to USMB for letting me post progress on my Charity Bees work here. It will help to have a record somewhere of them when the government will invariably someday ditch all benefits we paid into Social Security, and hopefully someone will know that even though I can't work and do a lot of land maintenance on account of fibromyalgia, I did for society what I could--make tops for others to quilt and give to shelter kids, wounded warriors, and sell for the guild's educational purposes for better ways of quilting for those who didn't get fixed into correct sewing in any home economics classes and are remedied by those our guild brings to meetings to teach her specialty.

Seem to have a headache along with my other virus symptoms, so I'm out today. God bless and keep SFC Ollie as he works through his operation and for all other USMB members who have troubles they can't even speak, all God's strength and goodness to help us respect each other, our cities, counties, states, nation, and greater humanity of the world, not to mention all the good stuff--fish in the sea, birds in the air, soft, warm fuzzy little mammals, pets, and terrifying wild creatures we may get a glimpse of in a zoo or Safari park somewhere, safe behind iron bars or giant aquarium walls..

 

[Foxfyre]

Becki do you realize this thread is closing in on 31000 looks? That's close to 90 looks per post? That's absolutely phenomenal!! I am guessing that there are hundreds and hundreds who are learning and appreciating much here,. Kudos!!!!

 

[freedombecki]

Becki do you realize this thread is closing in on 31000 looks? That's close to 90 looks per post? That's absolutely phenomenal!! I am guessing that there are hundreds and hundreds who are learning and appreciating much here,. Kudos!!!!

Thanks, Foxfyre. No, I didn't know, but thanks for the thumbs up. It's especially nice when someone drops by and say hello.

 

[freedombecki]

Hues of the Open Road quilt- 5-patch postage stamp squares surrounded by same color, bright when possible, from stash. I have around 10,000 1.25" postage square stamps cut out between 1995-today and placed in 1-of-each-print-only stacks to make several postage stamp charm quilts. From one of the stacks, I divided the stamps into color groups (which I should have done from the start) and used over a dozen on each of the 5-patch, 25-square blocks, then sashed them with 3" hues/colors. I had to wait 2 weeks until my racing-flag print got here, which I thought would be nice with hues. Then I got lucky and found a piece of fabric of antique cars from America's past, when each car was made by our own citizens, typical of post war year camaraderie for all that was suffered and understood between states. It will be the outside border, if I can find it this week, that is.

Tomorrow, I'm gong to cut and attach an outer border. I had to wait 2 weeks on the black and white race-flag check fabric, and it took me a week to locate some. Apparently, it's just not "in" any more. The last time I looked, they're still racing cars, though.

Here are 3 of the hues of the open squares:

 

[freedombecki]

And here are 3 more:

 

[freedombecki]

Finally finished! Hues of the Open Road for the Charity Bees Closet!

Bottom and top borders, and a sashing junction I just didn't do yesterday when showing the blocks. I just attached the Route 66 fabric and cars of yesteryear fabrics that are in hues of bright colors!