Community Quilts from Ray

Ray has some great quilts to share with us again. Today there are two and none are patriotic. If you’ve been following along on the blog, you know Ray has been busily working on quilts for an upcoming veteran’s program where they will be gifting quilts to veterans who have served. Here are today’s quilts.

Ray writes:
“A while back Bev C. in NY was doing a major destash and sent lots of goodies my way. In one of the boxes was a stack of 3.5″ squares that had been pieced from 1.5″ squares. I am assuming they had originally started out as a honey bun or two, strip pieced and made into 9 patch blocks. There were 102 blocks in the stack. OK, enough for a 10 by 10 block top. Steve has been wanting to learn to use a rotary cutter and a template. While I was in MN visiting my daughter, he trimmed them. My initial idea was to just sew all the blocks together into one big block. No way, way too much pinning is required. Then I decided to use sashing and cornerstones. More small pieces but a whole lot less pinning. I found some fabrics that complimented the blocks. After countless hours of cutting sashing and cornerstones, back to the machine to piece it all together. Keep in mind that I much prefer larger size blocks. Now it needed a border. Yeah, bigger pieces of fabric. Not one border but three borders. WOW!! I can’t believe I made it. I love how it turned out and glad I can check that off my list of things to try.

I found some backing in the stash and longarmed it with a Baptist fan motif and bone-colored thread.

It is now ready for the quilt guild airing of the quilts on October 7 at the Edison/Ford Estate.

My thanks to you, Bev, and the backing supplier for all the pieces needed to assemble this beautiful quilt.

I took a break from the patriotic quilts to longarm this sweet little quilt from Joann C. in CA. I apologize that the pics definitely do not do this quilt justice.

The fabrics are beautiful and a perfect combination for the sawtooth stars. The background fabric does a great job of making the stars shine.

It was a toss up between the star meander motif and the daisy motif. The daisies won and I really like the finished look.

I used bone-colored thread on the front and back so that it would blend in as much as possible with only the shadow of the stitching showing.

The backing came from the wonderful stash that has been contributed.

My thanks to you, Joann, and the backing supplier for the materials to finish this inviting quilt.

I love the stories that always go with the quilts. The story on the first quilt is particularly interesting. Thanks for sharing that Ray. GREAT WORK!! Many thanks to everyone who sent supplies Ray’s way and helped to make these quilts happen.