thank you Sharon, that is a good idea
I finished my first Quilt of Valor in October 2011 and sent it to a local retired army sargeant. I hope I can upload the picture of the finished quilt--it is called Angie's stars and it was posted on the internet by a lady who made the quilt for her daughter. It gives me such pleasure to be a part of this movement. So glad that this org. has joined in the joy. I can't find the pattern called Split Stars--had it, then lost it. It is somewhere in cyberspace.
missymath:I can't find the pattern called Split Stars--had it, then lost it. It is somewhere in cyberspace.
Here ya go: http://www.thangles.com/QOV1.html
Sharon
Hi Nancy,
I sit here weepy eyed as I sent my daughter off to Lackland AFB yesterday for basic training. Kristina is a bright eyed adventurous young lady who has enlisted for 6 years and plans for a career in Military Law . When I read your post that you are retired Air Force I grabbed on like it was a life line. I do not know if this is the proper venue for this but I would like to make a US Air Force themed quilt for my daughter and I am having great difficulty finding fabrics. I went to freedomstarunited.com and nearly everything was out of stock. Do you have any suggestions for where to buy fabrics of this nature?
I am currently working on a Quilt of Valor and had the same problem finding fabric. There's not a lot of quality patriotic fabric available right now. I did find some at Hancocks, but the thread count was not very good and I didn't think it would hold up very well. I ended up designing a quilt that used the colors of the armed forces (black & gold for army, and blue & white for navy, air force, marines).
About fabrics. You can go to the Quilts of Valor Foundation Website: www.qovf.org . There you will find a listing of all of the fabric manufacturers who are making lines of nice fabric specifically for Quilts of Valor. What I did was google some of the fabric lines to see who online carries them. Since everything in the specific line already goes together, I was not concerned about matching the colors. Here's a link to the fabrics page: http://www.qovf.org/content/uowfabric-companies.html I've used the Tribute collection from P&B. If you can find a charm pack for the line - that's a great way to preview the fabrics you may want to use.
Looks like fabric.com has quite a variety of patriotic fabric.
http://www.fabric.com/CategoryDetail.aspx?CategoryID=648be2cb-8670-4c85-a195-0ec36c031a9f
Hi Sharon: I have been quilting for just a year and have just completed my first patriotic quilt top. My plan is to donate it but I am slow at completion so nothing has been done there yet. The pattern I used was on the cover of the Dec Quilter's World magazine, called American Valor. I fell in love with it and searched and searched for all of the fabrics. I finally found them in March in Florida.
My issue now is that I would like to do something a little different for the backing but don't have any ideas. Is there someplace that has very simple quilt patterns that could be used for a backing on this quilt?
I have attached a pic of my top. I am quite proud of it as it was quite a challenge for me. Thank you for any info you can give me.
Pat
Hi Pat, and welcome! What a beautiful quilt - You have every right to be proud! I'm assuming from your post, that you want to piece the back - correct? Well, super-simple designs for the back....hmmm... Easy Quilts, Quick Quilts and Quilty magazines have beginner quilts. Looking at magazines and websites can quickly overload you! A simple idea is to select a simple block - like the churn dash, pinwheel, friendship star, shoo fly - and alternate them with just a square. Here's a really simple idea: use square blocks of different colors - random or patterned. This is the backing side of one of my QOVs. Hope this helps!
Thank you Sharon for your quick reply. I have been thinking on this all day and have checked online for some ideas. What I have come up with is some similar to what you are showing. I have enough fabric left over from the quilt front that I have decided to just make some 12" blocks in all 10 different fabrics and sew them together in rows. Then make up the difference with a wide border. I am thinking that that will be different and yet look good at the same time. Will post another pic when I get it done. Thanks again.
Super-duper! With all those gorgeous fabrics - it will be awesome. Can't wait to see it!
Pat,
your quilt is beautiful.
ty......i can't wait to get it all done!
There is a new policy at the Quilts of Valor Foundation regarding labels and journals. The VA has told us that we can no longer include our full names on labels or in our journals / notes. We can only include first name, last initial, city & state. June Moore, our executive director, is trying to get to the bottom of the new rule. Here is the full text of Susan Gordon's email about it: Please read it carefully.
Good Afternoon QOV quilters. I am writing to tell you about a change in how we handle labels.
We were recently told by the Veteran’s Administration that we could not have personal information
on our labels or in our journal notes. June Moore, our Executive Director is climbing the VA organizational
chart to try to find out what precipitated this change and just what we can provide in terms of information
on our QOV labels.
It’s a long standing quilting tradition to provide information on a quilt about the quilter and the long armer.
We hope to be able to continue that. For the time being, this is the QOV policy for all quilts. Please follow this
as additional information may be blackened out by VA staff. Something none of us want.