Army Quilt – Finished

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I mentioned a couple weeks ago that it was my husband’s birthday. Guys, his birthday present was friggin awesome, in my opinion anyway. Although, he was pretty keen on it too!

It seems like a million years ago I did that 101 in 1001 project. In fact, I did this sometime in the first years we were married. One of the goals I had was to make him a quilt out of his old army uniforms. And I slowly worked on it. Read that as I worked on it 1-2 days and then piled it away for another day.

Jump forward 5 years to about the beginning of October…. okay, back up to earlier this year first. When we were working on Abug’s quilt, I took hubby’s army uniforms to my grandma’s and told her we needed to make hubby’s quilt also. We used a couple pieces in Abug’s quilt and then it sat all spring/summer in grandma’s sewing room. So now we’re at the beginning of October and I went to grandma’s to can my fall green beans. I looked at her and said, OH CRAP, we were going to make hubby’s quilt and his birthday is in 4 weeks (or whatever the actual time frame was).

I knew that I was going to be busy the week of October 16th due to the Newton County Christmas for Kids Chili Cookoff and that I would be out of town the week of hubby’s birthday. So I told Grandma, if you can help, we’ll get this done for his birthday. She was ecstatic to help. Grandma’s are cool like that.

Choosing the Quilt Pattern

The first day we went to work, we had to decide what pattern to make. Grandma has a HUGE stack of pattern magazines and books. When I say huge, I’m not exaggerating and imagine HUGE! We debated this one and that one and tossed around ideas. Then I ran across this in the back of one of the magazines. The thing is… it wasn’t a pattern but more of an advertisement.

Celebrating Abe advertisement for quilt

The more I got to looking at it, the more I realized we had done this type of star in Abug’s quilt, so I pulled that pattern out. I sat there and did calculations (yes, everyone trusted my mathematical skills…. scary I know) and away we went to making this quilt.

I had some of his jersey style shirts (ugh, they’re really awful for sewing for a quilt, but we used them), some material I bought commemorating 9-11 (which is one of the reasons he joined the army), and his uniforms. So those three items became the centers of all the stars. I also had patches off his uniforms so we included those in 5 of the Jersey style centers.

Then in the mix, we did reds, blues, whites, and grandma had a star pattern that was army green, so we included that as well.

Pile of Army uniforms and material for quilt. Star pattern made with 9-11 memorial attribute material

The Finished Gift

I was so freaking excited about this present I could hardly contain myself. Of course, I tend to get that way about presents in general. I love buying presents for other people. Or in this case, making them even. That really makes hubby’s birthday, father’s day, anniversaries, and especially Christmas difficult because I immediately want to tell or give him whatever I got for him. And he and I razz each other, “What did you get me? What’s the gift? etc.” That reminds me of when we threw the surprise party. That sucked keeping from him.

This time was no different, except I had pictures on my phone to show other people because I was so excited. He also gave us this slicker thing that goes inside a rain poncho to keep you warm. We used that as the backing.

Guys, HE. LOVED. IT. Score. This may be the 1st favorite or second favorite present. There was one year I pulled a fast one on him and bought a wallet he wanted, right under his nose. That was great too.

Happy 35th Birthday. I know it wasn’t a surprise party, but… it’s not a HUGE birthday either 😉

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