Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Caroline's Comfort Quilt

The Armed Services YMCA runs a program called "Operation Kid Comfort" that provides quilts for children of deployed service members and you can read more about it here: http://www.operationkidcomfort.blogspot.com/. Ann Flaherty, the founder of the program, is a quilting friend of mine from when I lived in North Carolina.

As most of you know our son-in-law Jason deployed to Afghanistan in February for a year. When he deployed I began planning a comfort quilt for grand-daughter Caroline. Instead of using the standard Operation Kid Comfort design I decided to use the "Lucky Star" pattern (by Atkinson Designs). Susan at the main office of the ASYMCA here in Springfield, Virginia very graciously did the photo transfers for Caroline's quilt. The photos are of Jason, Jason in uniform, Jason and Rebecca, Jason and Caroline, and even one including their dog Sadie. The fabrics include a lot of orange, Jason's favorite color. The machine quilting, which I did, begins with stitching around the central star and then parallel lines radiating outward.


After completing the quilt I decided that Caroline also needed a small "quiltie" that she could take with her whever she goes, in the car, to a friend's house, and traveling. So I made a single block with a single photograph (the photo of Jason, Rebecca, and Caroline was taken the night he left on the deployment), and then I put taggies of various ribbons around the outside of the small quilt.


Rebecca and Caroline visited us in May and here is a photo of Caroline and her toys on the quilt.




No comments: