Community Quilts from Ray

You might remember that Ray asked blog readers to send him some patriotic quilt tops so he could finish them and distribute them to veterans in his area. Ray is such a wonderful person to tackle this big projects. Well some of those tops that you’ve sent are already getting finished.

Ray writes:

“I finished another beautiful patriotic quilt today. This one is from Arlyn P. in MA.

I am definitely seeing stars with this quilt. The center of the sawtooth star is a faux flag with a carpenter’s star in the upper left corner. If that was not enough starts the sawtooth star background fabric is red stars. Awesome!! Love the creativity of these patriotic quilts.

I used the stipple motif with white thread for the quilting. Arlyn included a lot of activity in the top without me adding any with the quilting.

I do not recall where the blue backing came from but it has a bit of glitter in it.

My thanks to you, Arlyn, and the backing supplier for the supplies to make this quilt for the Veterans’ dinner event.

Bev C in NY sent me another box of goodies that needed to go as she was cleaning and purging her ever-growing stash. Boy, did I ever get some great items?

In the upper left-hand corner is a kit that had not been opened. I could not help myself. I had to check it out. Included was a Yellow Brick Road pattern to use with the pink fat quarters as well as coordinating yardage for border and binding. That will be a very lovely quilt when finished.

In the lower-left corner is a group of dinosaur fabric. Lots of fat quarters to make another Yellow Brick Road or another pattern that uses fat quarters, There were also some miscellaneous blocks that needed to be evaluated. They may be a start of a Yellow Brick Road or another pattern that I can add to.

The right side is frog fabric. There are two complete charm packs of Froggin Around plus some loose charms. Then there is a lot of coordinating yardage to use. I am thinking Disappearing 9 Patch might be fun.

Since I do mainly longarming, suggestions on patterns will be appreciated.

Thank you Bev for your generosity.

I know quilt tops are not human but sometimes they can be very persistent. This top kept slipping off the storage rack and being returned. I finally decided to finish it.

The top is from Barbara via Jeanne M in AZ. The top arrived in two pieces that were different sizes but were made of the same fabrics.

I played around with them and discovered I could remove a seam from the smaller top, and then turn it, and stitch it together, and then have a section that could be added to the larger section. The newly constructed top measures 49 x 57. A nice size lap quilt.

I recently discovered a motif called water lily and decided to try it on this top. I used a yellow thread on the top and a bone-colored thread on the back.

Unfortunately, I do not recall who sent the wonderful blue fabric for the backing.

I really like the finished quilt and I guess it was just in a hurry for its turn to shine. My thanks to you, Barbara and Jeanne, and the backing donor for the materials to make this adorable quilt.

That was an eclectic community quilt post…a patriotic quilt, goodies in the mail, and a wonderful makeover. The common thread with them all is that they were all donated!! I love that so many of us have that common thread of having a generous heart…and speaking of generous hearts…Ray, with his great finish work, leads the way!!