Quilts of Valor

Quilts of Valor from Tellico Village Quilt Show

 For the last few years, I've been wanting to make a Quilt of Valor for my dad. My parents served in the Air National Guards and are currently retired. I've given quilts to my mom but haven't done a quilt of valor yet. 

About 5 or 6 years ago I got a jelly roll with a red, white, and blue theme with stars and stripes. I just couldn't decide what to do with it. I recently purchased a postcard pattern from the Fiberology Lab named Mazed by Running Doe Quilts and it uses a jelly roll and an l/2 yard for binding. 

I decided to do that with my jelly roll. When I opened the fabric roll and started looking at the fabric I was a little nervous about how it would turn out. Despite my misgivings, I sorted everything and paired the strips into 20 sets. From there the cutting instructions are simple and the blocks came together super fast. In the end, I'm happy with the way it came out. 

I feel it needs a border and plan on purchasing some fabric for that later. I usually piece my backings with scraps but I surprisingly have very little scraps from this. I think I have enough strip ends to make a stripe as part of the border or in the backing. I can't wait to finish this one. I was very happy with how it turned out.

Tea Time!

This one Ia a tea mom gave me. It was a lovely summer tea from Plum Deluxe called Watermelon Mint. I'm not a huge fan of watermelon-flavored drinks. I don't know why because I love watermelon itself. Nor am I a huge fan of mint in my drinks. Occasionally I'll grab one but that is rare. This one was good the combination was perfect. I had gotten the tea in July. The day I took this photo my power was out due to a huge storm and I had been using the candle to make a pot of tea. At this point, I was just letting the tea steep without the extra heat.