A Quilt from Linda and Connie

This beautiful Quilt of Valor was sewn by Linda in Loveland. I met Linda at a quilt show at "The Ranch" back in august, and she went home and got started on a gazillion pillowcases.

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And then this beautiful quilt came in the mail. It was Quilted by Connie in Longmont.

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Thanks Ladies - It is gorgoeus!

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Did you know that time goes way to fast these days? I swear I have blogged some interesting stuff since Wednesday, but apparently nothing interesting is really going on( or maybe it was just the stories in my head?) ....

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We had a swim meet this weekend in Fort Collins. Thats about 1 hour 10 minutes away. So we had to get up really early Saturday and get over there. All 3 swam Saturday, only 2 swam Sunday. My oldest LOVES the distance events.... and those are always at the end of the day. So we shut the swim meet down. But he did awesome - he took time off like he was on fire. I loved it - I exercised vicariously thru them!

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Quilters Accountability

Bari - over at http://crossroadsquilts.wordpress.com/ is doing a Quilters Accountability for 2010. I did not have UFO's and the end of 2008, umm, I do now.... But we will not talk numbers, just suffice it to say when I thought about counting and organizing them, Wrangler Man retreated to the Garage.... his man cave!

So I thought I would participate in QA in my own way, with Monthly goals.

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My January Goals are to quilt 15 Quilts of Valor. This Lone Star is QOV #1. It was made by Donna in Golden and it was just lovely to begin with. I had fun quilting it. I decided to do some swirly feathers with RWB thread in the Star, and Black in the black.

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Here is the back. I was a little worried using Black thread on a Light Background - but I think it worked ok.

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I have a second QOV project going on. If you remember last year we were invited to give out some quilts to the Returning WWII vets on the Honor Flight. The vets were so enthused by these quilts that we have been asked to do it again. I need 50 quilts by April 20th - so this will be a WWII QOV. Wish me luck!

The Second Quilt of Valor was pieced by Sheree in Heartstrings. I sent the dog panels to Sheree to be used, I just didn't know she would come up with this Wonderful Top. I Love it - Little bit, who wants 14 million puppies is really in love with it.

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Goal #2: Piece Bonnie's Carolina Christmas Mystery. ( simple enough right?)

I have finished Clue Two, and am halfway thru with clue 3. I have run out of the Black on white background, but I know I have more in my stash - I am kind of afraid to go look at my stash... but I will!

The By Product of Clue 3 is a lot of tiny 1/2 square triangles. I have had one suggestion to make pinwheels out of them for a border... any other ideas.. I think there is a million....

Goal #3 Plan a Weekly Menu -

This week - so far so good, I have had everything on hand due to our shopping trip, and although tomorrow is grocery day, I have enough food for another nights meal if it continues to blizzard like it is....

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Goal #4 - Exercise 20 minutes every weekday.

Yep - I have done it every day - even Saturday and Sunday... I am nuts!

I have Biked, Done Wii Fitness and started Jillians 30 day Shred ( ugh)

A Quilt from Amy

Amy - The totally energetic Quilter over at

http://skattebo-skattebo.blogspot.com/

made this Quilt of Valor for our soldiers. She even quilted it on her sewing machine - it is LOVELY!!

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Thank you SO much Amy - You did an awesome job!. I have no idea how you get so much done!

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Confession time - I am watching the Biggest Loser as I am doing this blog post - I have no idea why, but I am totally addicted to this show. My kids want Jillian and Bob to come be our personal trainers. Not to lose weight (well I could lose a few pounds) but to get tough. We think it would be cool, but in reality it would probably be grueling and I would cry.

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Especially since I can still tell you what muscles were worked during yesterdays ice skating session. I am focusing on the fun.

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Okay - off to stretch - Wrangler Man says he will be our personal trainer.....acckkkk save me....

Quilts from Ros

I am back on track - sort of! The kids are still home, lucky ducks don't have to go back till Wednesday. We did try to do the schedule thing sort of, but then we decided to go ice Skating. Good call - we were the only ones in the rink for almost an hour! For me, that was perfect - thats about how long it took me to get the hang of skating with out holding on to the wall. Tonite - I can tell you where my muscles are !!!

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Let me tell you about these three beautiful Quilts of Valor that I recieved. Ros at http://ros-the-quilter.blogspot.com/ quilted these three beauties.

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The first one - the string quilt was pieced by Nancy. I really like this quilt. She had made a few others to with the light colored string, and now I think one like this needs to go on my list to make.

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This next quilt was pieced by Elizabeth B. Isn't that a neat pattern? The colors are just perfect for that design!

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And the last quilt was pieced by Oralee, and 85 year old friend of Ros's. This one is one of my favorites. I think that block can be

found at Quilters Cache - but I can't remember for sure.

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Ladies - thank you SO much for your hard work!! These are beautiful quilts.

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Reflections and Resolutions

In January 2009 I actually wrote down my New Years Resolutions on my blog, and you know I had to make sure some of them were easy - so I had a chance of success. Now looking back I realize I didn't do to bad.

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(resolution 5)I learned to cook a lot of things with out wheat, barley, or rye. One of the resolutions was to learn to cook according to my allergies. And after only a few bricks of what was supposed to bread, I managed to learn to cook an edible bread. And then I got brave and learned to make an edible pizza crust. And to top of the accomplishments - I made a gluten free pie crust that was actually yummy! Now if I could just figure out noodles....

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(resolution 1) Quilts of Valor was an amazing experience. I have to thank EVERYONE who helped make this possible. A LOT of love was shared. I am defineatly continuing this. I have meet both wonderful quilters, and wonderful reciepients. I have made some of the best friends ever thru this project... and some of them might even come to visit me this summer!

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All in all I think the Year of Me (2009) was pretty successful. I started a few projects though, that I did not finish - so they will be UFO's this year.

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**********2010 Resolutions************************

I have been reading this book called "organization solutions for add people" or something of the sort. Now I do not have ADD - but there are some pretty good tips in there. And a lot of the behaviors do describe me. So I decided that instead of a whole years worth of resolutions that maybe I would break it down into goals for each month.

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So - here are January's goals. And I am hoping that writing them down will motivate me to keep up. I have a tendency to procrastinate certain things.....

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*Quilt 15 Quilt of Valor Quilt tops.

*Finish Pieceing the Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt top.

*Plan a menu each week, and stick with it. I am trying really hard to utilize my crockpot as we have swim practice 4 nights a week, basketball 2 nights per week and one weekend day, and swim meets one weekend per month. ( Oh there is 4-H, quilt guild, and Drum lessons thrown in too)

*Exercise 20 minutes each week day. (Wish me luck, thats the thing I procrastinate the absolute most!! I really should be exercising 30 minutes, but thought if I tricked myself into 20 minutes...I could convince myself to go 10 more minutes)

I hope you all the best for January too!

No Soldier Forgotten Quilt of Valor 2010

No Soldier Forgotten QOV project 2010

As you can tell from the side bar I am again collecting quilts for the Wounded Warriors Unit at Fort Carson in Colorado. Last year we were able to make 3 different deliveries and get every wounded soldier a Quilt of Valor. It was totally awesome. This year we are doing it a little differently, which might make numbers harder to track – but I believe that we can do it.
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Because warriors transition in and out of the unit quite regularly we are trying to get quilts to those who need them as we can. So I am working on estimates, and requests. In January, the Specialist that I am working with estimates that we will need 125 quilts, in March he estimates that we will need another 115 quilts. This is based on last year’s turnover rate. That is as far out as he has estimated.
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So based on the numbers at the side bar – we should be covered thru until March, but then – I will be low on quilts. Thankfully, many of you have been piecing, I have a couple of sewing groups here that piece quilts, and of course my 5th grade kids have been piecing quilts. I have had some great volunteers offer to long-arm quilt some of them for us, and I have a group of binders. I used to be able to call them all gals, but we have expanded and have a male. I call them the Binding Buddies. It’s awesome! And yes, I have probably used that word a lot – can you help me with more words that convey the awesomeness that is quilters? So we are always working. My own personal goal for January is to Long arm Quilt 15 Quilts of Valor. (because – yes I have that many tops here)
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Monday, I made backings for 6 quilts and got those sent out to other long-armers. The numbers will keep growing…. But there is still a need….
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So this is my plea.
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At this time of year everyone makes resolutions to do things, get more done, lose weight, etc. Won’t you consider putting in your New Years Resolutions to make One Quilt of Valor? If you are already involved in Quilts of Valor, I am not asking you to shift your focus – keep on keeping on! Make as many as you can.
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If you are not involved in Quilts of Valor, HERE IS YOUR CHANCE. Or if you are looking for a home for an un-quilted quilt top, here is your chance to fling it off and let it be loved!!
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The Quilt of Valor organization has a great set up. So you can get a quilt finished in various ways. Go check out the Quilt of Valor website – http://www.qovf.org/ and you will find a way to request a Long armer to finish the quilt. All sorts of info is there.
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Right now I have a lot of tops to finish. If there is a chance to utilize other volunteer long arm quilters that would be just awesome ( yep, there is that word again) But if you want to send your tops to me, I will be glad to take them, just know that there is a queue ahead of them, and truly soldiers would get quilts faster if we could flood the volunteer long arm system that Catherine has set up on the QOVF.org site.
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I am all in to making this easy!
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If you have a finished quilt, and you want to get it to a soldier, you can always go back to the QOVF site and request a destination. There are TONS of soldiers out there. If you want yours to go to a wounded warrior here in Colorado, you can send it to me.
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We take the quilts in pillowcases (called presentation cases) and have journals and letters in them. Now this is another area that I have been blessed in… I have volunteers that have been making these pillowcases JUST FOR THESE QUILTS. It’s Awesome I tell ya! At first I was very worried, quite a few quilts came in last year without pillowcases – I thought I am going to be sewing forever… but then my Heartstrings Quilt Project quilt group (http://www.heartstringquiltproject.com/) stepped up, and then the Middle School CFS class joined in, and then a quilt guild in Pueblo (Thanks Carol) stepped up. But honestly – do you expect anything less from quilters? These are the best people in the WORLD!!
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So again – back to my plea. Will you please consider making at least ONE QUILT OF VALOR for 2010? There are numerous stories on my website, on the QOVF blog, ( http://quiltsofvalor.wordpress.com/ )
in other blogs about how much these quilts mean to the soldiers. It is the best gift, and the best feeling to be able to provide that gift to them.
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The other day we delivered some Quilts of Valor, and a soldier told me this quote. He wasn’t sure who said it.
"HONOR is writing a check to your Country, for the sum of “All or part of your life”" . I believe that providing quilts to these soldiers is another way to Honor what they have done for our country.
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Questions? Fire away in the comments and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.
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Above all - HAPPY NEW YEAR

Alycia and the crew

School Pictures Part 2

I have been remiss is portraying the other two of my children - who also had to have their school pictures taken - just like little bit.

http://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/2009/12/school-pictures-part-1.html

And Wrangler Man did it. He has a lot of patience. But we all knew that - look who he married......

So this is Middle bit - he is currently in 5th grade. I like this because it is his classes that are working on Quilts of Valor. I get to know the kids a little better, and I get to eat lunch with my son. I like him... he's a great kid.

He is in front of his award winning quilt that he made for the fair last year.

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Sadly enough, a few days after we took these pictures that will forever remind us of this school year - he got his braces off. Which of course warrented a picture right there in the orthodontist office...

He was much more smily!!

Clue One

I took the plunge! I really wanted to do Bonnie Hunters Mystery Quilt... http://quiltville.com/carolinachristmas.shtml , but I knew realistically that I would not be able to keep up with the pace. So I just printed out the clues and gathered my fabrics, and cut a little here and there. I have officially finished Clue 1, and am working on Clue 2. I hope my colors will work out okay - but if it doesn't.... oh well, it sure is fun! Plus I am finally getting the hang of that easy angle ruler she uses so much.

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Christmas was wonderful, we spent the 24th with the inlaws ( well they are my in laws) Uncle C took all the boys sledding in the pasture... behind the hay truck. They had a blast, and got more snow in their clothing than they realized.

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The 25th we headed up to my parents house. We still had one dog left to deliver too. But the conditions were awful. They closed one highway, and I really didn't think much of it, until we were in white out conditions! Good thing we know their road pretty well.

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Of course we brought the wind back with us, so the 26th was miserable. My parent in laws came out to the house, and had to park at the road. They had to be picked up in the truck with chains just to get them to the house. All this to say - I made this potato soup in the crockpot and it was wonderful... here is the link. http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2009/06/crockpot-baked-potato-soup-recipe.html we put a little cheese on it, and had a side of raw vegetables. It was very filling.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you!
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I think that we are ready - the reindeer has been harnessed, the elf has his ears all shined up, and Santa has gained enough weight to stay warm during his round the world flight.

Quilts from Jody and Elaine

Elaine over at http://elaineadairpieces.blogspot.com sent in this beautiful Quilt of Valor. She has been showing its progress as she was working along at her blog. It was fun watching it come together, but I have to tell you the picture does not do it justice.
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Along the way she recruited another Nebraska Quilter - Jody - to do a Quilt of Valor. I don't know Jody, but I have decided she is crazy! Did you see the quilt she made. That is Bonnie Hunters Mystery Quilt from a year or 2 ago. And I know she is crazy becuase there are a million gazillion 1 1/2 inch squares in it.
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Ladies - Thank you so much! I am so grateful to you all to help cover our soldiers.