Community Quilts from Ray

I know so many of you have worried about Ray.  He is fine and has been blessed to have power and little damage.  He’s here today to share quilt finishes with you.

Ray writes:

The horrors of Ian are still very much a reality with more damage to be discovered. However, I am trying to return my life to a bit of normality with another beautiful QOV. This is the counterpart to the one I sent you a few days ago. These string blocks also came from Maureen M in OH. The difference is this one has a bright red border instead of blue. I did the quilting with white thread in a free-motion wavy style. I used a couple of larger fabric pieces for the backing. I think it looks awesome and is sure to be treasured by a veteran. My thanks to you and Maureen and the backing contributor for the pieces to put this quilt together.

“I have a QOV to share with you. The panel came from Sandy B in CA along with some other red, white, and blue fabrics.

I have not worked with panels that much and decided to see what I could do. Fortunately for me, it was a wider panel and much easier to add some borders to make it a nice size. I added a red, a white and a blue border. Wow!! I like how it turned out.

I used some awesome patriotic fabric for the backing that I think came from Sandy as well.

For the quilting, I used what I call the fireworks motif with white thread.

The variegated thread did not look good on the Statue of Liberty. My thanks to you and Sandy for the tools needed to create this awesome QOV for a vet.

With everything in a total state of turmoil and distraction around here… I find solace at the long arm. All is normal with the quilting and as it used to be.

I pulled out a top from Patty K in FL. as it was a smaller quilt and did not need me to bind. That gave me time to focus on other things going on in this crazy world.
This is a fun little quilt made out of scrappy strips. I decided to use the balloon motif that I had not used in a long time with white thread.
The quilting does not show all that much on the top but it pops on the back against the grape backing.

It is now ready to go on the stack of quilts to be finished by the Sew and Sew ladies that make quilts for Quilts for Kids. My thanks to you, Patty, the backing supplier and Sew and Sew for your wonderful support. It does take a team.

I longarmed another quilt from Patty K in FL.
Thank God for allowing me to have electricity so I can continue to longarm quilts.

This was a string quilt with a HUGE assortment of fabrics in the strings. Really interesting to see everything that found its way into this quilt.

I decided to go light on the quilting with the stipple motif opened up as far as I could get it. I used bone-colored thread to make the quilting blend in even better.

The backing is from Linda W in NY. I think it is a nice complement to the brown border.

My thanks to you, Patty and Linda and Sew and Sew for binding the quilt and getting it sent off to Quilts for Kids.

Isn’t it good to hear from Ray and know all is okay in his world?  I’m like Ray and when things in the world or family or life are topsy turvy, I find quilting and crafting is really a solace to me as well.  We are so lucky to have that.

Many thanks to all who helped make these quilts happen.  I continue to be amazed that many hands work together to create so much.