Quilts of Valor

I'm mailing off these 5 tops this week to my old guild in Germany to be finished for the wounded soldiers/marines/airmen/ect that arrive at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center(LRMC). When I lived in Germany and was a member of the guild I made bunches of Quilts of Valor(QOV) but when we moved here to South Dakota I could not find a group to work with on them so I kind of let that project go. However, this past year has been more difficult for the base and for me. We have had 2 active duty suicides, 1 war death, one major war injury and one or two other active duty deaths. I knew one of the suicides and one of the others so its been wierd/hard to just go on like nothing happened. This has been my outlet. After I pieced these and 2 more I quilted a while back I decided i needed to find a way to get them to the men and women who needed them. So, I emailed back to my old guild and they will take these and finish them. Then they will go off to LRMC for those who need them. Patterns are from: an oline mystery, alicia's not so top secret#1, my head, Judy L's most recent quilt for an hour, and my head again. I've got 3 or 4 more tops started from my various sized scraps but this box is full and the others will have to wait a while before they get sent on.

runner swap

I participated in a fall/halloween runner swap that was a bit unusual lately. The rules were to send FQs to one person, then they would make a runner out of them and send it back. The top runner is the one that I sent away the fabrics for and recieved back. I LOVE it. Its been patiently waiting for me to get the kids healthy enough to have time to clear off the table and set it out. Today that finally happened! The second one is the one that i made and had to send back. That was the hardest part! I loved this one too and really wanted to keep it here for us. But its been recieved and is being enjoyed by the recipient.

pictures? what pictures?

I've got 4 finished projects that i want to share pictures of but due to life, I can't seem to get those pictures actually taken! I finished 3 QOV tops this week and I finished a king size quilt for myself weeks ago. Between windy or rainy weather, dance classes, work and school there is just too much going on to go outside in the daylight and take the pictures. Of course it does not help that if we are home with some down time the kids think they need to run down the street to the park. It would take about 5 minutes to go out and take these pictures but they seem to be off before i can even make the request. Oh well, done is done and pictures will have to wait another day or 2. Maybe wednesday after school?

A change of pace

Since dance and gymnastics classes for the kids have started for the year I now find myself with a LOT of time to just sit during those classes. Something like 6 hours a week! I know that some of those night will be full of errands and stuff like that but the first few weeks I wanted to sit and watch, so I brought along some thread crochet. I have not made doilys in probably 5 years! My crochet has been easy stuff-potholders, afgans, Edgings on flannel for baby blankets and stuff like that. Nothing in thread since we moved from Germany 3 years ago! So when i went back to the thread books and patterns I really had to think about it. The white doily was a royal PITA. I dont know if i had the wrong hook, a bad pattern or if i was just that far out of practice but I truly did not expect it to block flat. The Pineapples were pulled tight and the edges were ruffled! But with a lot of work and some starch it is flat and looks way better than I expected it to. If you are wondering about the slightly off color, the thread has a metallic red/green thread in with the white so its going to be a Christmas decoration. Its about 15 inches across at the widest point.

This one was MUCH easier! I have no idea what possesed me to buy this thread, varigateds are hard to use on doilys and thats about all I do in thread crochet but its kinda neat...maybe under a candle on the table with a blue table cloth?

Now that these 2 are done I need to find another travel project. I've got a neat pattern for a thread crochet angel using a cookie cutter as a body/base. Should I use red/white/blue (patriotic style) or red/white/green(Christmas)? Or should i jump on the homemade socks bandwagon and start a pair for myself? Decisions, decisions, decisions!

bag lady

I've been making bags this weekend. The first 2 are for teacher and neighbor gifts. I made 13 total of those little ones. They are about 6x8 or so and will hold a little Halloween Gifty of some sort for "Boo-ing" the neighbors. Boo-ing is just hanging the bag on the doorknob, ringing the bell and running as fast as you can so they dont see you! The kids are really looking forward to doing this again this year.

The next one is pretty big, when i took the picture it had 5 skeins of Christmas yarn in it and you can barley tell its got anything in it. The Kitty one is for Sami's yarn since Grandma taught her to crochet this summer. The last one is the only one that has any sort of closure on it. I put a zipper in it and plan on using it for my afgan project. The theory is the zipper will keep most of the dog hair out of the yarn. I got dinged at the fair this year for dog hair in my yarn projects, so i want to avoid that next year!

I've got 4 more bags waiting for me to get the handles done. Two Christmas ones and two ballet/dance ones. I think i'm going to donate the dance ones for raffle prizes at the dance school's Christmas show.

Question: if i quilt the fabric for a bag, does it count as a quilty project? I if counts then I need to update my ticker up top! It kinda seems like i'm cheating if i count it tho......

blog giveaway

Usually I dont do this but I want to make Sami a bag out of the fabrics Piwacket is giving away so i'm posting about them and linking here http://piwacketquilts.blogspot.com/ so I have a better chance of winning!

september goals

I think I need a list to keep me on track. Quilter's ADD has hit again and i'm bouncing from project to project and not getting done what I should be getting done. So, 10 finishes and a set of swap blocks for Sept are the goals.

• Batik swap blocks
• Quilt ladies lap finished
• 30's RWB RR finished
• Leaves lap finished
• B&W lap finished
• Hearts lap finished
• 30's sampler lap finished
• Music twin finished
• Bearpaw twin finished
• M&M rows full/queen finished
• one 30's baby quilt finished

If it says i'm supposed to finish the project, i've got the blocks made and in some cases even sashed together and maybe even basted. I'll quilt all these myself probably mostly random meanders for simplicity's sake. I'll let you know onthe first of october how close i got and i'll post a new list then too!