contest entry

I'm part of the Quilting Gallery Quilting Bloggers ring, and they have a weekly themed quilt contest.  I entered this week; the theme is Veterans' Quilts.  I uploaded one photo and a 300-character story, but I'm expounding upon it here.

I began this quilt around 2003 and the start of the Iraq War.  I hadn't any special intention for it, really.  A friend was being deployed and I just began sewing.  His deployment was eventually canceled and I still had a quilt top I wasn't sure what to do with.  I thought about finishing it and raffling it as a fundraiser for something military-related.  But then I left my ex-husband and all my sewing room was packed up for years while I moved from tiny apartment to tiny apartment to tiny house, and then eventually here to Virginia.

The same week I moved into a house with a sewing room, my mother passed away.  My cousin Laura and her husband Justin came to the memorial service.  As my dad introduced the family he mentioned that Justin had just returned from his fourth tour of duty abroad as a naval officer.  Now, I knew that he was often away on aircraft carriers just by being Facebook friends with Laura, and I always marveled at how she managed to work and care for two small boys (one with considerable health issues) while he was gone.  I decided to finish the quilt and give it to them to thank them all for his service.

It was the first quilt top I gave to Star City Stitchery to stitch.  Laura there quilted a star design into it, which you can see from this picture:

The back, though, has some great military girl pinup fabric that I bought when I did the quilt top.  You can see a little below, which is the picture entered in the contest.

Voting is underway - go check out the Veteran themed quilts and vote for your favorites (it doesn't have to be mine!).  You can select up to four.  The prize includes some nice Kimono silk thread which I would love to try out with my appliqué project.

In other news, I won a copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 4 for my response on this post! 

I've been entering to win a copy all over the internet and while I'll keep visiting the designers' blogs for the tour, I'll stop entering to win.  That means better chances for you, so go check it out and enter!!  And while I'm on the topic of giveaways, Green Fairy Quilts is having one also where you can win a favorite precut!  Go check it out!