Wounded Warrior Quilt

The Gateway Quilters' Guild sponsored quilts for the Blue Star Mothers of America "Quilts for Wounded" program. Here is the link that explains the purpose for these quilts:  http://www.bluestarsouthbayla.org/?q=node%2F254.

My quilt I named "Wounded Warrior" (not very original, I know) because not only is it destined for a service man or woman wounded in the line of duty, it has one block that is "wounded."

In other words, I messed up. And, unfortunately, I didn't catch it until after I took the picture.

Overall, except for that one little sign of individual "uniqueness," I was pleased with how my quilt blocks turned out.


I started with the fabric design I used as the backing. I also used it for the block centers and strips on either side of my blocks in front.




 

My original plan was to use this beautiful gold star on dark red fabric as the outside border with the inside border/sashing in the coordinating gold star on dark blue fabric. Then I realized the symbolism of the gold stars. Starting in World War II, women who had lost sons in combat were called "Gold Star Mothers" and displayed a gold star in their windows.

NO! NO! NO! That fabric would not do for quilts intended for wounded warriors. So, I searched for other patriotic fabric.

The quilts are 48" x 78" gurney quilts and designed to go with the wounded serviceman or servicewoman along with the coordinated pillowcase to the hospital bed.We were told to use bright, patriotic colors. No camouflage -- active service personnel get plenty of camouflage and tend to get sick of it.

This is my coordinating pillowcase. The body is of the same fabric as the quilt backing.

I quilted the layers together with white thread because I did not want to detract from the white star on white fabric in the squares. The rest of the quilt was so busy that I went with a plain navy blue binding. The following pictures show how I sewed on the binding. Even though I used a two-inch strip for my binding, I felt my machine finished binding turned out pretty well. A big part of the secret was that I used a quality cotton fabric.

First, I stitched the folded fabric to the front of the quilt using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

 I pressed the binding flat on the front, then turned the quilt over, folded over the binding and pressed it in place on the back.

Next I pinned the binding on the front of the quilt so that, looking from the back, the pins barely caught the folded outside edge of the binding.

From the front, the pins were about 1/16 to 1/32 inch from the seam of the binding. It was just wide enough for the machine needle to stitch between the pin and the binding. I used both ball-head pins and butterfly pins. One nice thing about butterfly pins is that I can sew up to the bottom of the pin-head and easily grasp the butterfly wing with my fingernail to pull the pin out.

I have this nifty little presser foot with a quarter inch seam guide. The prongs also extend out front longer than most quarter inch presser feet which helps "grab" the next block as well as holds the fabric to the bottom gripper teeth. I use it to assemble my quilt blocks. It also worked well to help keep the binding from slipping out from under the presser foot while stitching. It was a pricy little item, but well worth it to me.

My finished binding. I like a narrow binding on most quilts. I was very happy with the straight seam that finished it.

I understand the theme for the Gateway Quilt Guild's quilt show next year is going to be based on veterans. I look forward to doing another gurney quilt for the Blue Star Mothers of America program. I also hope to put together a Civil War theme quilt although we no longer have veterans from that war still living.