Military Uniform and More Quilt

I made a quilt from military uniforms and more.  It is commonly known as "Erik's Quilt".  It has everything to do with what he wanted and who he is.  That is his story and I am not going in to that here.  First I am posting a photo of the finished quilt, then I will elaborate, a bit, on how I did it.

The planning for the quilt started a wee tick over one and one-half years ago.  Erik was a photographer in the U.S. Army.  He is still a photographer.  He grew up in Germany and his brother served in the German military in Afghanistan. 

The clothing Erik gave me, to include in the quilt, is in the upper photo. It includes a t-shirt, which I pieced into the back of the quilt.  I failed to photograph the back of the quilt, but I do have photos of those blocks, just prior to them becoming part of the backing.

This is the early stage where I just wanted to get a feel for the colors and possible combinations.  I dulled my seam ripper ripping those desert storm fabrics apart.  Later, I quit ripping and just used scissors to cut away the seams.  I did not want seams in the quilt, to reduce bulk and weight.  I chose one pocket to include and I cut the inside of it down and surged what was left closed before I pieced it into the quilt.  I removed the buttons, then sewed them back on, after the quilt was quilted.

I absolutely wanted a half-square triangle border in the quilt. I wanted a framed focus on the military fabrics in the center.  Then I worked my way out.  I already had the black and white film fabric in my stash, so that made a dynamic border, as well.

When it came to cutting into his brother's uniform shirt, it was difficult to make that first cut.  This shirt is amazingly well constructed, and with great design.  I made sure I only cut what I needed.  I have another project in mind, as a gift to his brother.  I made sure I got the German flag from the right arm included in one of the pieced blocks in the quilt.

All the clothing Erik gave me has meaning, so I wanted to include it all and the other things he wanted in the quilt.  The other things were mostly in the fabrics I chose to go with the clothing fabric, including a nice smattering of Hawaiian fabrics (chickens, Army men, and Scotty dogs, oh my!).  The dark red with eagles actually looks a little cammo-ish from a distance, so I really like that effect.  The black is not solid black.

I wanted the German and American flags in the quilt.  Piecing the German flag was easy, but the American flag is another story.  I went into my patriotic fabric stash and settled on the eagle carrying the flag, and another piece for the center of the balance "flag" top border.  I did not want the binding to cover the edges of those pieces, thus the red strip at the top.  There are three different red fabrics that pulled the whole quilt together.   This includes the Hawaiian shirting fabric on the outer side borders.  Another reason for the Hawaiian red fabric is it has yellow and black in it, to add more color to go with the German flag.  I made Erik's name and the year in the bottom border using the red and yellow, so it is carried throughout the quilt.  I knew all along that I wanted the browns and sands to be in the outer border.  It grew so much that it was not as much in the outer border, as I had predicted.

My long-arm quilter told me I could not get everything on the front, and he was right!  When my daughter came to visit in May, we went on a spree to The Gathering Place in Rupert, ID, where I found some awesome llama fabric that needed to go in.  My daughter found the unicorn fabric at Sally's Back Porch in Shoshone (on the way back from Rupert), that had to go in . . . so I made blocks for the back of the quilt, too!  It was a nice balance on Erik's sister's t-shirt.

Yes, the quilt back is predominately pineapples and plaid. It has a nice ring to it!  And it looks good, too!  I may have to ask Erik for a photo of the back of the quilt.

In front of the main hospital building at the Boise VA Medical Center.

He loves it and I got the reaction I was hoping for, when I gave it to him.

Remember: if you click on the photos it makes them bigger, so you can see the details.

Halloween in August

Did you notice all the 'Christmas in July' events this year?  I noticed several, and some were at quilt shops.  I have completed my 2nd Halloween quilt for this year.  Actually, I made a Halloween quilt top while I was out camping in June/July.  That one still needs the backing constructed and the quilt quilted. After that quilt, I made another quilt top out of those scraps and some other scraps in my Halloween Scrap Stash.  Say that fast four times.  Anyway, I finished the scrappy one and hand-stitched the binding on, so I could enter it in the Western Idaho State Fair.  It has been entered.  All the quilts will be judged on Wednesday, and then on display when The Fair opens on Friday, August 20.  If you understand log-cabin blocks, you will notice that this one is four really big log cabin blocks using varying widths of fabric strips.  It is a liberated log-cabin block quilt.  Officially:  scrappy, wonky, liberated log-cabin Halloween quilt.

I have this overflowing bin of Halloween fabrics, which I have gotten under control.  I can actually get the lid onto the bin. That is why I made two Halloween quilts this summer.  The previous one, I completed in February and posted a photo at that time.  I managed to make that photo look like it was Halloween, but how do I get some spooky fall look in August?  I took advantage of the smoke from all the wildfires that are polluting the air in the valley (and all over the place!).  My husband and I got up early on Sunday morning and drove out toward Caldwell and found a couple of fields to pose in front of.  I had my husband bring his gloves and he was allowed to hold the quilt up with his fingers showing.  How liberated of me, to allow such a thing.  Anyway, it is kind of a scary pose in the fog (smoke) with some eerie orb in the background (the sun).

Here is a shot of the back.  It has a six-inch wide casing across the top, so The Fair folks can hang it up.  The casing covers up the way cool bat fabric that I used at the top of the backing.  Oh, well.  It was long-arm quilted by Virginia at Crab Apple Creek Quilting.  I knew I wanted these spider webs when I took it to her.  She made it happen!

Who knew?

Who knew that the adorable Queen of Skunk Cabbage, would grow up to become the adorable Gluten Free Quilter?  In my younger days, my dad worked for the Forest Service.  This resulted in me spending a great deal of time on the Boise National Forest, exploring, fishing, wading, throwing rocks in the creek or river, picking/eating berries, drinking root beer, and taking naps.  Due to the COVID-19 situation, my husband and I have taken several trips up to my old stomping grounds and 'camped out'.  He bought a couple solar panels, inverter, and a large capacity battery, so we could catch some rays.  Those caught rays powered my sewing machine, iron, and a fan all day long.  There was still enough energy at the end of the day to run our TV so we could watch some murder mysteries after dinner.  Some camping trip!!!  

We went up on June 30 and came back after the 4th of July weekend.  Here is the skunk cabbage!  Oh, you can see a little bit of the creek, behind it (upper right).

Here is our camp site.  This was the first day, and we did not have the awning up yet.  You can see the two solar panels just to the right of the American flag.  We towed our Blazer, so we could go exploring on some days.  We are always looking for a new nice place to camp, but this is our favorite.  About 90 feet on the other side of the Blazer is the creek; an excellent place to cool off.

We had some extraordinarily high temperatures in Idaho during the last six weeks . . . it got pretty warm up here in the late afternoons, so a cold dip was a wonderful thing.

Here I am piecing a Halloween quilt.  I got all the blocks finished and sewed to each other, while using solar power out in the boondocks. I have a braided rug under my table, where I place my peddle and bag of pieces and parts.  There is usually a breeze, so my blocks are under my ruler and pop-up to keep them from blowing away.

These two shots seem a little on the dark side, but you can see my blocks, my bunting, and the evergreens beyond.  This is almost like saying "What's on the Design Wall In July?"

We drove up to Lower Lave Mountain Trail Head, to check out the creek there and see if there were any campers.  The road, in the photo above, is the one we came up to get to Lower Lava Mtn TH.  It is a one-track road with no turn-outs, but this would be a fabulous place to camp out if you do not use an RV to do your camping in.  There was no one camping up there.  The creek was much lower on July 2nd, than it had been last August when we were up there.  Then we checked out Long Gulch Creek, down where Long Gulch Guard Station used to be, and it was as low on July 2nd as it was last August.  There are little fishes in there, and I wonder what will become of them if the creek dries completely up!  I caught my first fish in Long Gulch Creek when I was six years old.  It is beautiful up here, but I think the Forest Service is letting it go.  These hot temperatures are not good for the creeks and their ecosystems.

This tree survived the huge fire that came through here in the early 1990's.  Not much left here to indicate there had been a nice guard station here.  This is where we camped over the 4th of July in 2020 (last year).

Obnoxious III

Wait a minute!  Where is the posting about Obnoxious III?  I have investigated the situation, and it appears I did not post about Obnoxious III, last November, when I completed it.   I just had sooooo much going on last fall!  I had to glean through my massive collection of photos to find it.  Without further ado, here is the photo of the amazing Obnoxious III quilt:

After I made the red border on this one, is when I decided to put red in the center portion of the next one (Obnoxious IV).  I did actually complete this last November.  The blocks are 5 1/2 " blocks with a back and forth rotation orientation to make the zig-zag effect happen.  It is quite a simplistic design, so pretty quick to assemble, sew, and get finished.

Obnoxious IV

 If you look back on my September 27th post, titled "What's on the Design Wall in September,"  you will see what this was looking like last September.  It is finally completed.  It is very bright, all except the little tree in the lower right-hand corner.  I truly believe it is obnoxious, however, several of the quilters at the meeting last week, were saying, "That's not obnoxious!"  What?!  Are you kidding me?  It is certainly not reserved, glamourous, or sophisticated.  It IS obnoxious and I love it.

I just really had to put that red in there.  I used the black with yellow and orange bursts from the backing on Obnoxious III, and pretty much used up every scrap of it.  I deliberately made sure there was not as much pink in this one as the previous three.  I added the blue and my wonky houses.  The blue and white VFW fabric came along just in time to be the binding on this quilt.  It is like the topping on the cake!

Left Overs Make Eight Point Stars!

Happy June!  The heat is here and I have been busy in the AC.  I have alot of green, brown, and blue fabric left over from making the Crayon Quilt Challenge quilt, so I used some of it to experiment with eight point stars.  I happen to have the Bloc Loc set of flying geese rulers.  I have never used the largest one, so I decided to give that a go.  I made nine blocks using the large flying geese ruler and this is how the quilt turned out.

If you wish to give this a try, I figured out how to 'add a page' to my blog.  Look to the right and you will see the heading "Tutorials".  Click on the Eight Point Star tutorial and see what it is all about.  Not so very hard.  Give it a try and let me know how you do.  See the tips portion, as the half-square triangles border was made using the part you cut off from the flying geese.  Amazing!  

OMG! G is for Goodness!

 OMG!  Did you see the new "Cutting Corners Kits" at Jordan Fabrics???  The demo is amazing!

I don't buy kits, but the demo is amazing! Trust me on this.