Quilts of Valor - the Presentation Continues

before I get to the rest of the Presentation - I wanted to give a huge shout out to the Pride City Quilt Guild in So Colorado.   They are some prolific pillowcase makers and they love to share with Quilts of Valor.....

Check out all these awesome pillowcases 

And the quilters below who made them!

I hope you always know this is a group effort - to Honor Our Veterans Touched by War!

I try real hard to give everyone the credit they deserve - 

cuz Wow - it truly touches these Veterans hearts to know how many are involved in Thanking them.

And now - on to the presentation photos!

This is a Lt Col. He was so wonderful

And he said Thank you to his Dad.  His Dad had just passed away. 

So touching

These two - the Veteran above

and the Veteran below

are brothers.

They were nominated by their sister

She was from Cody and came all the way down to be here.

I don't know how to explain how they steal your heart - 

but they truly do

Meeting each and every one of them has certainly made my life much better

and I hope we have shown them our appreciation!

You can always learn more at

http://www.qovf.org

"To Cover our Service Veterans Touched by War with a Comforting and Healing Quilt of Valor"

Interested in making a quilt?

Check out some of these patterns and block Ideas:

Quilt Patterns

Grasshopper Pie

Happy May!!

I would like to introduce you to 

Grasshopper Pie!!   

If you remember - each month I am trying to make a new block to use up my scraps, and stash.  I have made 2 quilts using this block and in the  middle of the night  - had an epiphany! 

If I made a Quilty Pie - I wouldn't have to count the calories!!

and So!!

Here it is - Grasshopper Pie

You will notice that it is not bound - but that is not for lack of trying!

I ran out of my light grey

and I ran out of my mint!

And of course, it was snowing , so ... I will head to town this week to find the mint.

This pattern is for sale in my Craftsy Pattern Store

http://www.craftsy.com/user/949071/pattern-store

It was such a fun one to put together and measures

61in x 76 in

Perfect for that couch!!

Linking to:

Making Monday

Patchworktimes

Main Crush Monday

Moving it Forward

Quilt Story

FreeMotion by the River

Steadfast

The photo challenge this week was the word Steadfast.   Oh and to do it in Black and White.

I thought long and hard about that word - and the thing that stuck in my head was the Love of Country that our Veterans show to us every day - to the point of death.  

( of course, we had just hosted our QOV presentation - so that was quite fitting)

I decided to head out to Fort Logan Cemetery and see what I could see that spoke to me.

These are both the same photo

Each edited Differently

Don't forget to check out my Photo Blog for even more photos of non quilty things

A Drive By

I might have been the recipient of a Drive By Plaid-ing recently!

Lois and her girls sent this

AND!!!

Another bag - that I am coveting and will share later

And just in case you are worried

I am working on another plaid quilt

I think this might be Plaid #20

but I have lost count

which is okay 

I am learning that I don't like statistics

and sometimes I just don't care

I have that NEED to create - so I do ;-)

Enjoy !!!

PS - a lot of you are asking what pattern it is - Here you go
http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/quilting/home-decor/bulls-eye-log-cabin/42764

Quilts of Valor - a Presentation

Good Morning!!!

This weekend we were privileged to host a few Veterans Touched by War  for a Quilt of Valor Presentation.  And if I do say so myself - we showed a lot of Love!!

In my head - pictures are much better than words - so let's get to the Photos shall we?

I love the look on this Vet's face - 

Totally made my day ( above)

This Gentleman blew us away with his speech

They are not required to make a speech and most rarely do - but this guy

Wow 

He told us how he has so many medals and awards 

and absolutely none of them were as important as this Quilt was.

To be honored by the people he was honered to serve - wow!

(above)

This one was fun - the gal in Yellow is one of our Quilters

The Vet she is hugging is her brother - awesome moment

And she also nominated her brother in law (below)

I LOVE that she wanted to wrap them in their quilts too!

And this was our surprise

His Wife and Daughter stitch with us

and we surprised him with a Quilt!!!

We also had a Husband and Wife team

She was first women to teach Marksmanship Technical School

And her husband

It was SO cool to have them both there

So come back next week

I will show you the rest of them!!

Birds and The Golden Hour

I had two different photo challenges this week - and the both were so much fun, and sort of challenging to attempt.... as noticed by the number of photos I discarded!

The first was a "Domestic Bird" photo.  When I read the challenge I saw *birds in a cage*  and since there was no way I could cage Fred the Eagle....  I loaded up the kids and we headed to the zoo.

It was a great day - everyone else had school... so there were only about 300 people there. My kids had the day off due to ACT testing for the 11th grade. 

We had so much fun and really enjoyed the day.

My Bird that I decided to enter was this Cassowary. They are native to Australia and New Guinea.

The blurred spots are actually cage wires - so this was a fun challenge to learn - how to shoot through the fence. Now I want to go try it on a baseball game.!

This was our Runner up - the boys ( okay really it is me, but I am using them) think these birds look like they should be in a Jurassic Park Movie.

Then Next Challenge was "The Golden Hour"  
I caught my Man riding the fences as the sun was going down.  I think it turned out pretty cool and Phil the horse wasn't goofing off..... he is a big goof off  - that one!

And this was my runner up photo = the sun through the tree.  The sun helped was out the dirt spots where our grass hasn't grown - I liked that!

The end.

 

Hassayampa River Preserve - Arizona

On a part of our Spring Break we went to the Hassayampa River Preserve. That was a cool place!  My kids and I laughed and giggled - I was walking over a bridge and started ( and I might have screamed a little ) . I thought I saw a cow - but alas - it was a tangled tree of branches....


From then on out - they kept saying - Mom - Look a cow!  ( I have trained them well - right?)

When we walked in  there was this tree with a million hummingbirds! They were flitting from branch to branch - so glad I caught two of them!

As we walked to the entry - check out this feeder with all those little Hummingbirds!!

Then we started walking into the preserve!

Check out those trees!!!

And my Goof Offs!!

The Cactus were just starting to bloom

I loved getting close and checking out the blossoms

But not too close - 

these cactus might jump at me too!

I took the opportunity to re-try a technique that we had learned in my Photo Classes

It is called the Brenizer Method

You take a series of Photos in a certain way and then stitch them together - post processing

Little bit agreed to post and see what we could achieve

And a poppy!

That is my birthday flower

They were all over the hills where I grew up - so I was tickled to see another!

Don't worry - there are more Arizona Pics to share!!

Quilts of Valor - Flashback

Every once in a while I click on the wrong album when I am trying to find photos.... but then.... I really wanted to re-share these.

Quilts of Valor has been a part of our household for 11 years.  From teaching kids in the 2nd and 5th grades, to working with 4H'ers , to getting my kids to make a quilt every summer for QOV...

I am one who thinks if you want to stitch - I will show you how the machine works.... and if you make a mistake - you have two ways to deal with it...

1. Fix it   or   2. Do it again and make it a design element.

These are some of the first pictures I have of my kids with quilts.....

Little Bit had his quilt hang at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum - in the Quilts at the Hands of Men display.  Talk about an honor - on opening night all the makers of the other quilts were there. Oh man, were they so cool - they talked to all 3 of my boys and really encouraged them to keep quilting..... I LOVED it!!

Here is is in front of his quilt

The original pattern is called Weed Whacker - its from Bonnie Hunter

And then there's my Middle Bit

When he was in second grade he got his whole class involved in playing with blocks and writing letters to go to the soldiers that the quilts were going to

( we knew they were all soldiers at this time - we were going to the Army Post)

This is his quilt

If I remember it is Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson designs

Here is my oldest in the 5th grade ( he is the bottom right - grey shirt)

His class is what I call my downward spiral - Ha ha!  They all wanted to make a Quilt of Valor and ended up making 10 quilts as a class.  It was a Great and Fun project - and many classes afterwards wanted to participate.

The moral of the story?  

Teach them young and make it fun!

Thanks for walking through a memory or two:

Design wall update

Remember all the Pink Strips I was working on?

It is finally a top!!

I have decided that it is time to move the furniture out of my house....it keeps getting in the way of me taking pictures of my design wall.... and with a cell phone - you need a straight on shot!

Think the others will agree??   

The top measures 54 x 66 in

And this is still the pile of leftover strips..... anyone interested?   Seriously.... I'm ready for them to find a good home.... I bet there is a lot of a quilt left ( or maybe a whole one.....)   

First to speak with a return email - i'll send them your way ;-)   They are taken - thanks!

Little bit says you need to see Fluffy cat. Fluffy Cat looks like a huge monster of a cat, and when you pick her up, she is tiny and all Fluff..... she says hi

Linking to:

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2016/04/18/design-wall-april-18-2016/

http://www.cookingupquilts.com/mcm-16-new-fabric-crush/

http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/2016/04/monday-making_17.html

http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/2016/04/oh-scrap-its-string-time.html