This past weekend, our car club sponsored a Quilts of Valor event. We honored seven veterans, all with Vietnam service. It was the ceremony where this quilt I made with donated stars was awarded to a friend.

You may also recognize this quilt top, sent to me by Mary Ellen. I quilted it for the same ceremony.

Mary Ellen’s quilt went to Edward R, third from the left. My quilt went to Dave B, on the end on the right.

We had a wonderful reception for them following the ceremony, with trays of good things to eat. The buffet began with fruit and cheese, followed by fresh veggies.

There were several sandwich options starting with cubanitos – ham and pork with Swiss cheese and pickles.

Then there were chicken bacon naan and wrap sandwiches in three choices – tomato wrap with roast beef and white American cheese, spinach wrap with turkey and provolone, or white wrap with ham and Swiss cheese. A tray of deviled eggs is always a favorite, and lasted just long enough for me to nab the last one. As the host of the event, I was last in line.

Dessert was amazing, with two trays. One was called Decadent Sweets and was mostly chocolate tidbits, with chocolate dipped strawberries in the middle. The other was a vanilla cream tart with fresh fruit. Yum!!! One thing this club does well is food. You may recognize my Patriotic Table Runner on the buffet.

So, I was inspired to begin another Quilt of Valor for a future ceremony. I had this panel purchased at Beginnings a couple of months ago. The uneven balance of stars at the top and bottom didn’t make sense to me.

So, I cut them off.

I pulled out the last of the star blocks that were sent in for my block drive earlier in the year. I’ve lost track of who sent what, so if you recognize yours, do let me know in the comments so your name will be on the label. If I don’t have that, the label will say “Blocks by Friends of Quilts of Valor”.

I had planned to put panels of a print in-between the stars, but I realized if I put an inner border on the panel, I could use all the blocks I had. That makes the most sense.

I had this lovely fireworks print on a pretty shade of blue background. I measured it out in order to make this inner border as large as possible. The quilt needs to be a minimum of 60-inches wide, so getting there is easier with wider borders.

I added the inner border to the panel, then placed stars around the edges to look at placement. I have four that are a different star than the other 8, so I wanted to distribute those around. I found I only had small strips left to fill, so I got out more white background to do that.

I sewed three stars together and added strips on each end, then sewed those to the center. Using white background rather than a print keeps the focus on the stars.

For the top and bottom, two stars are placed in the center, with stars on the corners. I did the math to add strips for filler.

The strips are added, then the corner stars are sewn to the strips.

With all the stars added to the panel section, I measured it to find the final border width needed to bring it up to size.

It only needed six inches total, so I made the border 3-inches wide. I auditioned a couple of prints, and this subtle one in navy was best. It framed the quilt nicely without competing for attention.

The assembly of the top took about six hours. At the end of the day, I loaded it on the longarm to quilt. I’ll work on that this week.

The goal is to finish quilting and get the binding sewn to the front by the end of the week. Then I’ll have some hand work to do while watching the auto races and the Stanley Cup hockey finals – go Carolina Hurricanes!!