Debbie's quilt

Debbie waylaid me at the April Forsyth Piecers and Quilters Guild meeting:)  She had loved the swirly pattern I quilted on my teacup quilt and she asked if I would have time to finish her quilt of valor before the next month's meeting. Debbie made this quilt for her son, Christopher, who has been a combat photographer for the US Navy for the last 14 years. She told me she was headed out to Italy in 5 weeks to see him. Could I get this done in time? Sure, I said, no problem, hehehe.

I had a baby quilt and a t-shirt quilt in line before her, but I was confident I could get this done in time. And here we are, a record two weeks (30 hours of quilting and 33 bobbins later)...

Debbie wanted the swirly pattern quilted on all the white background, but she gave me free license for the rest. So fun! I ended up choosing a feather design for the red 'ribbons'. At first I was thinking more geometric, but the straight lines I tested on my plexiglass sheet just looked cold and stiff. I thought the feathers made the ribbons flow more.

The yellow stars were the most challenging for my machine. My poor little Jane is worlds better than the original Viking I started quilting on, but she still balks at seams. I was able to power ahead, teeth clenched, through the start seams with only one thread breakage, yay!

I had a lot of fun with the the large blue star. I used a design that Green Fairy Quilts uses a lot for squares. Love these loops and circular square echoes:)

I wanted to do a similar design with these squares on point for the outer blue border, but my math leaves something to be desired. The squares wouldn't line up properly for the length of the border and would have ended up more like rectangles. I decided to quilt more feathers instead to bring all the sections together.

 

Thanks so much Debbie!