Happy Memorial Day!

In honor of Memorial Day, I'd like to introduce you to Quilts of Valor. Their mission is "to cover ALL those servicemembers and veterans touched by war with quilts called Quilts of Valor (QOVs)." My local quilt shop, Prairie Shop Quilts, hosts the local chapter of QOV the first Tuesday of each month for a sew-in. My mother and I started joining them a couple months ago and have really enjoyed it. Our chapter is run by, Rita Pennington (who happens to be the mother of my husband's best friend) and is called LOLQOV (for Land of Lincoln or Laugh Out Loud, take your pick). Once a month we get together and work on various quilt projects for our veterans. Some people work on their own projects to donate, others work on making things from our ever-increasing stash of donated fabrics, and some of us (particularly those who like to take on more projects than they can handle) do both. :) Tomorrow is our monthly sew in and here are some things I hope to work on.

One of our ladies made a quilt based on these blocks...

... and when she was finished she hoped to make another, but ran out of the brown and gold star fabric. Rita said she had a "challenge" for me and gave me the leftovers to see what I could come up with.

There were about 40 of the center block left over (already sewn up) plus some other leftovers and I was able to come up with two new versions by rearranging the blocks and adding some sashing...

Each of these two quilts will end up being 5 blocks wide by six blocks high, which will put them both nicely past the 50"x60" minimum size requirement for QOV.

And, of course, I also have my own QOV project in the works. I have recently been sort of obsessed with bargello quilts and have started one that I have high hopes for. It will be a variation on a bargello. Here is a pic of the fabrics all sewn together for the first stage of it...

At tomorrow's sew-in we will also be learning a new pattern so we'll see what I actually end up working on. And our sew-ins are always accompanied by lots of great food since they are potluck, so I need to run off and make some banana bread for tomorrow... I hope you all enjoy your Memorial Day!