Ribbons and Stars Quilt of Valor

Update: May 1st, 2018 - Quilt of Valor was awarded to Felix - Korean War Vet, US Army, 92 Years Young!

Back at the beginning of February 2018, I had the opportunity to participate for a day in a Quilt Of Valor sew weekend at Aunt Judy's Attic, my local quilt shop. I would have loved to have stayed for the 2nd day, but on the second day, there was only a four-hour window to enter my other quilt into a quilt show that was two towns over - another story, another day...



Anyways, we were to bring our own fabrics, our sewing machines, potluck, and fun spirits!

I had seen a quilt that I wanted to mimic, but for the life of me, I cannot find the website to give credit. I thought for sure the quilt was called: Leftovers, but I'm not finding anything! If you know of anything, please help!

All the same, according to my sources, this quilt is a variation of the Rail Fence Quilt.

For my time spent at the quilt shop that day, I was able to piece together all my strips and make all my 60 blocks, plus my three-star blocks. I learned that the quilt shop's top feed printer did not like to print onto the fusible web. Note to self: Do not buy a top feed printer.

My original plan was to make a simple rail fence quilt, but once I had all my pieces cut, there were a lot of extras left from my strip piecing. Most of them were just 1/2" shy of being a full block!

I quickly came up with a way to incorporate them back into my quilt. I realized I could cut the scraps in such a way that they would be the perfect size to add to the ends of my rail fence blocks. I got busy cutting half-square triangles out of them...

I tried something new with this quilt. I sewed all of the 2nd border strips – end to end, and all of the 3rd border strips – end to end. Then I sewed 2nd border and 3rd border together to make one long strip set. From the strip set, I then cut two units 67” x 3½” for the top and bottom and two units of 83” x 3½” for the sides. I sewed each border on, stopping ¼” from the edge. I then sewed the corners in a mitered fashion using the Easy Y Seams technique I use for machine piecing my hexagons. 

I just love the way it turned out!

My local quilt shop owner, Judy, is a Local Quilt Of Valor Volunteer Longarmer. But she is so awesome, she let me play and quilt the quilt on her machine.

To get a copy of the free Ribbons and Stars Quilt Of Valor Pattern, click here.