Pictures from Winfield annual QOV sew-in

Fr. Cesar

I had the honor and privilege of presenting a Quilt of Valor today. Fr.'s military service is as follows:
2008 - Commissioned as 1LT in the USAR (Chaplain Corps)

2009 - Attended Officer Basic Course

2009 - Assigned as BN/Hospital Chaplain of 801st Combat Support Hospital

2010 - Attended Phase 1 & 2 of Chaplain School, Fort Jackson, SC

2011 - Deployed to Munich Germany in support of Chaplain duties

As Chaplain of 801st Combat Support Hospital, his responsibilities includes providing religious services to soldiers of different faith groups, counseling, teaching classes in suicide prevention, cultural sensitivity, etc. He also does "Yellow Ribbon Event" training for service members who are deploying, and have recently arrived from deployment. In between his drill weekends, the Chaplain Corps and his unit send him to specialized training that is useful in his assignment as a hospital chaplain.

Thank you, Father for your service.

Rita

Marianne Fons and Catherine Roberts

northernillinoisquiltfest.com/weekendofvalor.html
Huntley Park District (Rt 47 and Mill St) is the place for a weekend of Quilts of Valor August 19 and 20th. Marianne Fons and Catherine Roberts, the founder of QOV, will be there. The address and directions is: Cosman Center , 12015 Mill Street, Huntley. (From Rt. 47, our entrance to the fest is West, off of Main Street, Huntley IL, proceed South on Lois Lane, to the parking lot on the South Side of the Rec Center/Cosman Cultural Center).

Tickets are on sale for Marianne Fons' speeches on Friday evening at 7 PM and/or Saturday morning at 10:30 AM. You can get these tickets at Quilt n Joy or by calling 847-961-6507.

They are in need of people to come and sew. There are a few spots left for Friday but Saturday is very open from 9 AM - 4 PM. At 1 PM Saturday, they are making QOV presentations to local veterans. There are exhibits and 10 vendors!! Check the website with information.

I will be going on Saturday. They will need some kind of a count by the first of the week of the show as to how many will be there as PBS will be filming that day and they would like to be set up with a fairly accurate count. There will be a concession set up on Saturday and possibly Culver's...or bring your own.

So, join me! Let me know so I can let them know...so far one we have three besides myself.
Rita

WHEWWW

A HUGE QOV weekend that was! First I want to thank Dorothy, Cheryl and Marilyn for helping me man the Quilt Show. I know I met a lot of people who were enthusiastically signing the blocks, taking information about our monthly sew-ins, offering to donate fabric and made it a very worthwhile weekend! I also handed out a couple of our kits.

I also need to thank Accomplish Quilting (www.accomplishquilting.com) for the donation of two quilts. This was the Gammil dealer at the show who came up to me the first day of the show and told me they would have two quilts for us and they did. You got to see this one--- I must bring them for show and tell at our next sew-in.

We have been invited back for next year's quilt show. So, the QOV word is getting out and we keep getting more and more people involved, makes less work for the rest of us, is the way I look at it. With the amount of our men and women expected to be returning, we might have to think about having bimonthly sew-ins...think about it.

Sure would like to see you at the Farmers Market on Wednesday (West Aurora Plaza 2-6)
Rita

Busy Week/Busy Weekend

A lot going on this week/weekend! We had a very good turn out at the Farmer's Market table this past Wednesday. This weekend we have a table at the Batavia Quilt Show. Come by and visit us. We're located near all the patriotic quilts. The show runs Friday (1-6), Saturday and Sunday (10-5), located: Shannon Hall at the Eastside Community Center, 14 N. Van Buren St., Batavia, IL 60510.

Also, Vicki, is representing us at the RWW program in MN this weekend. It'll be a very great experience for her and I hope more of you will be able to do the same at a future RWW weekend.

And of course we will be at the Farmers Market this Saturday at the Aurora Transportation Center from 7:30 am - noon.
Rita

THAT was fun!

Just got back from our monthly sew-in/picnic and haven't made a count yet on what came in. This is the You Tube video that I was telling you about. It is called the "Jelly Roll Race". A few ladies were working on a technique similar to this which will be finished next month. I'm also looking forward to the new technique Wanda showed us today as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EomX7t7to_o

ok, here are pictures of our first Signature quilts made from blocks that we are getting donations for the purchase of supplies. We have a table on two days at the Farmers Market in Aurora: the Aurora Transportation Center (Saturday mornings from 7:30 AM - noon; and Wednesday afternoons starting tomorrow, July 6 at West Aurora Plaza (2 pm - 6 pm). For any donation, donors are asked to sign a block that we will be making into quilts to be presented to local returning service men and women.

A couple of our ladies took some blocks and had family members and friends sign them and are making a quilt of their own. The completed quilt above was made by Donna. That's one beautiful quilt!

Thank you, ladies. I appreciate all you do to make my job a lot easier--- and believe me, our war veterans appreciate it even more. Even the Viet Nam and Korean War Vets I've met at Farmer's Market give us kudos!! See ya next month...
Rita
PS The pattern for our Signature Squares was designed by Bonnie Hunter, named Fourth of July

Happy 4th of July!

Hope you are all having an enjoyable holiday. Hope to see a lot of you at our sew-in on Tuesday.

Our Saturday Farmer's Market Day experience has been great and I am happy to say the Beloit ladies are experiencing the same results!! If you haven't heard, we are making signature quilts and the donations from the signed blocks are great. We have enough signed blocks to make our 2nd quilt top! We also have a quilt we are raffling--it was a hard sell yesterday in the heat, but I've seen "regulars" come back each week to got their ticket for a chance to win the quilt in October. This month we will also be at the West Aurora Plaza on Tuesdays.
Rita