Celebrating a Military Retirement

In my recent post, I shared the first quilt which celebrates a military retirement. If one quilt is good, at least two or three is better, right? This is the second military retirement quilt for another member of the family. This time, I used the Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern to make a quick quilt.

As I mention in my lectures and in the book Deploy That Fabric, when quilting, I treat the military uniform as a neutral. If green and shades of green match everything in the garden, they can match everything in a quilt. Also, the nature of camouflage is to blend in, so place it where ever you like!

Fabrics

Working exclusively from my own fabric stash, I pull nine fabrics that measure at least 21″ x width of fabric. I spent a bit of time trying to rearrange them in a suitable order as they will stay in this order for the Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern.

The Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern

Using the very-fast No-Waste Flying Geese method and giant sizes listed in the free Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern, I got to work. The quilt top really does finish up in a weekend. Here are the highlights for construction:

• Mark a diagonal line on the wrong side of all four smaller 10″ squares.
• Lay two squares on the 19-1/4? larger square, matching right sides, to create a large diagonal line.
• Pin pieces together, perpendicular to the marked line.

• Sew 1/4? from the marked line on the right and left sides.

• Cut along the marked line.

• Open the smaller triangles and press the seam allowances towards the smaller triangles. If you’ve created two slightly-weird heart shapes, you are on the right track.

• Lay the remaining 10? squares on each of the larger triangle pieces; making sure the diagonal line points “deep in the heart.” Easy to remember, right?
• Sew 1/4? from the right and left of the marked line.

• Cut along the marked line.

• Open and press seam allowances towards the smaller triangle.
• Each pile of five fabric pieces will yield four large flying geese blocks.

Check out the entire free pattern here: Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern.
Next, sew the flying geese units in to nine rows.

Quilting

To the surprise of everyone on the planet, I didn’t take pictures while I was quilting this project. I will tell you though, quilting over the military uniform pieces was a breeze with my HandiQuilter Avante and size 110 needles. I quilted over welt seams, though I did not stitch over the name tape.

I do have one image to share with you. One photo to scare you a bit.

What you are seeing is the very bottom edge of the quilt. The entire piece was quilted with a spiked swirl edge-to-edge free-motion quilting design. I was be-boppin along, and as I came to the end of the quilt, I spent a small bit of time convincing myself that I did indeed measure the quilt back. Surely. I must have, right? Or maybe I was laying it on the floor and guessing I had enough fabric. I really wasn’t sure.

The red snapper (plastic) you see in the image allows me to load the quilt onto the frame in a matter of minutes. It is also about 3/4″ wide, for reference. I’d say I definitely got this a way too close! And in the very next breath, I’ll say, “See, look- 1 inch is plenty of room. No-Waste EVERYTHING!” *insert maniacal laughter*

The Quilt

The military quilt is finished and on to its new home.

The fabrics are quite busy, so I’m not sure how well you can see the quilting. You can see even less on the backing, this time.

If you need a quick project, I highly recommend the Chevron Grande Quilt Pattern. And of course, if you have an occasion to sew with military uniforms, please check out the book, Deploy That Fabric.