How it all began

Several events came together; pretty much simultaneously to give me the idea of making quilts for troops currently serving in the war. My stepson was sent to Afghanistan for his 3rd tour of duty and my son joined the United States Marine Corps. I made a quilt for my stepson and sent it to him in Southern Afghanistan. It made me think that the other men and women in his unit would enjoy receiving a quilt as well. Also about this time, I took over the post of Community Service Chairperson in my local quilt guild. All of these things came together in my head and I started looking for an existing project that we could join in to help provide quilts for active troops. I found several projects that provided quilts for wounded soldiers and for families of fallen soldiers. But, I did not find anything that was exactly what I wanted to do.
When I did not find a project to send quilts directly to active troops serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, I decided that there should be such a project and the Yellow Ribbon Quilt Project was born.
The first step was to make sure that the quilts would be accepted by the troops. As I said earlier, my stepson is in Afghanistan. The wife of his unit commander is acting as a liaison for family members. I contacted her and told her what I wanted to do. She in turn contacted her husband who was very excited about the project. After receiving the “go ahead”, I was off and running with this exciting project.
The next step was to find a quilt pattern. I remembered having a quilt pattern that I thought would be perfect for this project, but of course I could not find the pattern. I also had a quilt size in mind that I thought would work well for the troops…not too big and not too small. I was able to write a pattern using those dimensions and the same general directions that I remembered from the old pattern that I had lost. I then made the quilt, using the pattern I had written. It worked! Wow! I had never written a pattern, so I was very relieved to find that my dimensions actually worked, and the quilt was really nice and simple to make.
I told my employer about the project and my boss went right out the same day and bought all the patriotic print fabric that our local Hancock Fabrics store had in stock and donated it to our Quilt Guild for this project. With members donating solid red and blue fabrics, all of the quilts will be very patriotic!
I will be very excited when we ship our first box of quilts to Afghanistan. I truly hope the troops will enjoy them and know that we are thinking of them everyday and praying for their safe return home.