OUR QUILT OF VALOUR (PART SEVEN)

We got home this afternoon after being gone for 12 days.  We had a fabulous vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC and then a brief visit with family in Burlington, NC.  

Knowing I would be away, I wrote several posts to "publish" while I was gone. We finally decided we were "smart" enough to get smart phones so I didn't take my laptop with us.   

The problem though with my phone is when I publish a post, it doesn't publish it with that date, but the date when I wrote it.  I don't know how to change that.  

So I didn't publish any of the posts that I wrote before I left because they wouldn't necessarily appear as the most recent post.  I will be sharing some of the fun "stuff" we did on our vacation, but I will also be publishing those "older" post.  Just because they are "older" though doesn't mean they aren't important.  

Hope you will enjoy reading about our last gathering to complete our quilt of valour the quilting group has been working on for over a year.

I realize how quickly time passes when it seems just like yesterday that our quilting group met in August for our monthly meeting. Here it is September and time for us to meet again.

We thought we would get the quilt top finished this month, but we didn't.  But wait, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

We still didn't have the full group.....Sharon was out of town with her husband and Rita has decided to take a break from the group due to her daughter-in-law's illness.  The good news was that Dorothy was back a couple of months earlier than she thought from helping with her son and his wife during his illness.  The other good news was Alice Ann, a new member to the group.

As usual we started with sharing.

Ellen shared a darling name plate she made for the quilt that she made her new grandson earlier this year.  She got the idea to make a postcard, including a LOVE stamp, addressed to her grandson. She painted everything on it. (I covered the address with a piece of paper for the picture for his privacy.)

Dorothy shared her English paper piecing that she worked on while taking care of her son.

Alice Ann shared a quilt that she made for the Corvette Club that she and Ellen belong to. It is made from T-shirts.

Here is a close up of one of the squares.

I took this picture in Kay's Craftland of Santa teaching school.  I am always anxious to see what Santa is doing each month when we go. I asked Kay for the pattern information so I could let you know if you are interested in getting it.
The pattern for Kay's Christmas Throughout the Year is available at SEW WHAT?  The pattern is actually a Block of the Month pattern.  Kay decided to make the block without the sashing and just bind it with narrow binding.  So she has one for each month that she hangs in her sewing room.

Last month, if you have been following this project, we laid the finished squares out on the floor in Kay's craftland as per pattern in the magazine.  We stacked each row so that we could sew them together at our September meeting.

I brought my sewing machine so we would have two machines "working".  Just to make sure we had the pattern correct, Janice and Fran laid the first three rows down on the floor between the two machines.  That way Janice could hand Kay the squares to sew together and Fran could hand me row 2. 

After one row was finished, Ellen set the seams and then press the seams to one side.  We pressed row 1(and the other odd numbered rows) back toward the first square.  We pressed row 2 and the other even numbered rows away from the first square.  This means when the rows are sewed together, the seams will "nest" nicely together. 

After I finished row 2, I turned my machine over to Ellen so we could all share with the sewing (and I could take pictures). 

Dorothy took over the pressing for a bit. (It was good having her back.  We really missed her while she was gone. Dorothy was the one who brought the idea of making a quilt of valour for a wounded warrior to the group last summer.

Alice Ann also took some time at the ironing board. It's exciting having new members join the group.

Kay continued to sew at her "station".

I pinned rows 1 and 2 together and asked Ellen if she would like to sew the first two rows together.  (I asked Dorothy didn't she want to sew some, but she said she was only comfortable sewing on her own machine.)

As we finished sewing rows together we laid them out on the floor to enjoy the pattern.(and assure ourselves that we were sewing them correctly)  The strips on the sofa are rows 1 and 2 sewed together.  The ones on the floor are the finished rows.

Here is Kay after she finished the last row. (Ok, this one was staged, but I promise you she looked just like that but I didn't have my camera ready so I had her do an instant replay.)

Before Dorothy, Ellen, and Alice Ann left, Dorothy pinned rows 3 and 4 together and I stitched them together.  Fran did the honors of pressing them together.

We were a little disappointed that we didn't get the whole top finished, but all the rows were folded up and put in the basket for our October meeting.









I hope you have been enjoying sharing with us our adventures of making a quilt of valour.  If you are a latecomer and would like to start back at the beginning, you can do so  HERE.  There is a link at the end of each post to the next "installment". Go HERE for our next installment.