Thank you everyone, I am just overwhelmed by all the lovely comments from you. And no, I don't think I even got a thank you from my friend for completing her gift on time. She does not sew, but she does beautiful crocheting, so she does know how much time and money it takes to create something. But I am glad that I made it for one of our military members. he loves it and thats all that matters. I used a pattern from quilterscasche.com called 'Golden Gate', and adapted it to to the larger size I wanted to use. And yes I did have to use my seam ripper several times. I had the hst for the center panel in red/white and when the top was finished and I looked at it, those white hst were so much larger where they met the 12"square hst corners, it was very noticeable, so rip,rip,rip. I had to remake those corners in red/gold so it would not looked mismatched. To go faster I quilted it in large free motion scribbles.