Seaside Stitches: Blogger's Quilt Festival- Pete's Quilt

In honor of Armed Forces Day (tomorrow), the Recon Challenge (today), and because I miss my boy, I'm entering Pete's Album Quilt in the large quilt category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

While Pete was in recruit training for the Marine Corps last Fall, I was stitching this album quilt with a few of my bee friends. We used an assortment of modern red and blue prints on a background of Kona white.

I presented the completed quilt to him at his graduation at Parris Island, SC in December. He wasn't interested in having his buddies sign it in traditional album quilt style. He's too cool for that. We were thrilled to have him home for Christmas! Don't you just love a young Marine in dress blues?

Since he is still training to be a Reconnaissance Marine at Camp Pendleton, the quilt is on his bed at home. When he is assigned to a permanent duty station, I might let him have it!

His area of Camp Pendleton has not been affected by the brush fires except as a staging area for evacuees. He was doing well in Recon training, but suffered a setback with tendonitis in his knee. He has recovered and will be joining the next class when they begin phase two in Coronado at the end of the month.

I asked my friend Pat Harrison to quilt it with a patriotic design of stars and stripes. That's Pat on the left, holding up the quilt with me at a guild meeting.

The blue print on the back is from a Quilts of Valor collection that includes phrases such as Miss You, Proud of You, Home Safe. The binding is a bias stripe.

The album block was getting some vintage modern love last year, but I couldn't find instructions that were quite right for my quilt, so I wrote up a tutorial for my bee mates.