Originally Posted by EmiliasNana (Post 7737223)

My DH is a history buff and has his dad's photo albums from WW II, plus his dad's uniform and memorabilia in a shadow box he framed. The flag that was presented at his dad's funeral sits in its own little addition on top of the frame. One Christmas not long ago our middle son enhanced all the photos in the albums, including the captions that were under them, pictures of the memorabilia, plus researched what the metals signified etc. etc. and made it into a bound leather album. When I saw Stephanie Hove's pattern: Because of the Brave, I knew it would make the perfect Christmas gift. By the way, it is his first quilt/wall hanging!

I chose to personalize the quilt and honor three generations of soldiers in our family: my husband (VietNam), his dad (WWII), my dad (WWII) and my grandfather (WWI). Each border is quilted in block letters the name of each soldier and their service dates. Because the thread is black on a black print, I decided to micro-stipple inside each letter to emboss it into the batting. Can you tell I am not confident enough to use a contrasting thread ? LOL

After I had the soldier applique applied to the quilt top, I decided to use double batting and try to quilt it with the details of a soldier, rather than do a meander throughout. I enlisted the help of that same middle son to try and add the details to the existing silhouette shape. Not an easy task as it turns out LOL but between him, his computer skills and my husband, they did a fabulous job.

With a little more work the label will include a picture of each in their uniforms with a small description of where they served (& in the case of my grandfather, where he was injured) All were Army veterans.

Here it is in all its glory. My DH has been patient for his Christmas gift (though it was presented to him on Christmas Day: quilted (minus the soldier), bound and with a hanging sleeve.

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By the way, we drew the details on the original applique pattern and then I traced it on Press and Seal with a Crayola Ultra-Clean Washable Marker. The pen didn't smear and the Press and Seal sticks to the fabric, though I pinned the edges down so my Tiara wouldn't catch the edges. I like Press and Seal better than paper because I can retrace my lines exactly, whereas the paper perforates and tears away somewhat after the first pass of the machine and I can't always "hit" my line. A frixion pen ERASER works great to remove paper OR Press and Seal from those small little areas. I had no problem at all removing it. I did use tracing paper for the outline of the block letters, but removed it before I micro-stippled from the back. Thank goodness I had chosen a littler colored backing, not black. Hope you enjoy!