Thank You, Marine...

I enjoy the privilege to quilt other people's ("OP") quilt tops a lot as part of my job...it's wonderful! All of them are special, but sometimes I feel particularly honored to work on a special project for someone.  This lovely patriotic quilt was made by a grandmother for her grandson who has given the last few years of his life serving us in the United States Marine Corp.

I won't show his name here as I don't know him personally, but what I thought was so very special about this quilt is that Grandmother wanted me to quilt in the names of his duty stations while he was a Marine.  

So in the red stripes of this patriotic quilt, I stitched in words (click on the photos to make them larger if you need to, my phone-photography is not great)...

 Of groups that he served with...

 Bases where he was stationed...

 Ships that he manned...

 ...Far away lands where he was deployed, and risked his life to protect and preserve our nation.

It was an honor and a privilege...Thank You for your Service and Sacrifice Marine!

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day.   Join us at the shop for our Free Veteran's Day Quilts of Valor Sew-In! Come for the whole day, or stop by on your lunch break to help us sew together blocks to be put into quilts for Quilts of Valor.

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Are you taking Part in the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt This Year?

Have you taken part in the annual Bonnie Hunter Winter Mystery Quilt before?  If you're looking for some pure sewing fun this winter, check out Bonnie's Blog Quiltville's Quips & Snips!  Every year Bonnie runs a Free Mystery Quilt project starting with the first clue the Friday after Thanksgiving, and releasing another clue each week for about six weeks until it's finished!  If you sew along each week making the clues, you end up with a wonderful quilt at the end :)

Bonnie has given the color clues out ahead of time, using paint chips as reference to what she is referring to, so you can go through your stash and start gathering up your fabrics.  It's meant to be scrappy ~ the more fabrics the better!  You can visit Bonnie's blog post to get full description of the colors and how this all works...and then check back there on Friday, November 25th for Clue #1!

Just like year, we've gathered some fabrics in our shop that coordinate with Bonnie's paint chips, and have a display of a sampling of fabrics that coordinate with it :)

So if you need to supplement your stash (and I have spied some people in the shop with paint chips lately), come in and pick up a few cuts to go with your fabrics...and we have little colorway bundles too :)

This year, you can also see (and purchase too!) some of the fabrics we've pulled together Here on our Website 

I'm in the process of collecting the grouping for my quilt now too.  I'll work on the Mystery as an ongoing side project (The real mystery is when I'll ever get it finished), but it's always fun to play along!

I won't put any pressure on myself to keep up with all the clues, but I'll touch base with all of them along the way, and download them each month, so I have them for when I can work on it throughout the year as my "Leader & Ender" project for a while.

If you'd like to work on Mystery Clue #1 with like-minded friends, join us on Friday, November 25th for a Free Sew-In Day at the shop!  Clue #1 comes out that day, so you can work on cutting it out and sewing on it.  Come and go as you want all day between 10:00 - 6:00.  (It's also Black Friday, so I know there will be a pretty darn good Sale going on that day too!)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn