Dian's Soldiers' Angels blankets

Dian...a Member of the
Soldiers' Angels Sewing Team

(Updated as new blankets are done.)

Soldiers' Angels Blankets...Ongoing to Nov 1, 2008...we need 180,000 and you can help, too!
Greg and I are members of the Patriot Guard Riders, who support soldier and vet funerals and homecomings, as well as Soldier Angels on Steel Wings, for a few years now.

A similar group that supports the men and women who protect us are the Soldiers' Angels. I became a member of their sewing team in 2008. They make Blankets of Hope to send to wounded soldiers and are working to collect 180,000 Blankets of Belief to send to all soldiers who will be away from home for the 2008 holidays.

Latest Update!

I'm EXTREMELY proud and humbled to tell you that Soldiers' Angels contacted me and asked permission to feature my blankets on their web site!

Subject: Blankets of Belief
Comments: Your designs are gorgeous! Would it be possible to have your permission to post some of the pictures of your blankets BOB's on our main www.soldiersangels.org site? Let me know.
Caren Vink
Soldiers' Angels
Vice President

Hi Dian,
Thank you for allowing Soldiers' Angels to post and share your wonderful blanket creations. I sew too..and I am mesmerized by all the colors and the way you put your blankets together. Many soldier's will be so delighted to receive one of your warm and cozy blankets.

Warmly,
Caren Vink
Soldiers' Angels
Vice President

Here's a couple screen shots from Soldiers' Angels web site showing several of my blankets (top couple rows), as well as a close up showing one of the explanations.

Update!

I recently checked out the Soldier's Angels blanket page and found a photo update of just some of the blankets they've received at the NC holding site. And check it out...I can see two of my blankets in the pile!

Look closely in the red circle and you'll see my blankets (as shown further below on this page) # 2 and # 3 in the stack! How Cool!

Need inspiration to get rolling making your own blankets for the soldiers?

Check out this BEAUTIFUL cartoon from LawnDartComics.com dedicated to Soldiers' Angels and their blanket campaign!

Below are continually updated details of the blankets I've made so far for our soldiers.

Blanket # 8

Blanket # 7

Blanket # 6

Blanket # 5

Blanket # 4

Blanket # 3

Blanket # 2

Blanket # 1

Details of my soldier blanket making work...

I spent my 2008 mother's day making a couple blankets to send to the soldiers and recently finished another. I ordered lots more patriot fabric, so I have a lot more blankets to make, as time permits.

I found a great patriotic fleece to use for the backing. Since there are specific measurements that need to be met and the average cotton fabric, which is the flag fabric I used for the front, generally measures only 44", I used the wider fleece to fold over to add a little to the blanket width. I pin the two together, not using batting since the fleece adds to the blanket's thickness and warmth.

To add enhancement to the blanket, as well as cover the seam where the fleece is folded over, I add ribbon to both sides to add as a border. Then I add some quilting down the length of the blanket in various areas to neatly hold it all together.

So one side is warm fleece, the other side cool cotton, with a fleece and satin ribbon border on each side. The bottom is simply rolled over and finished with a blanket stitch. The top gets a white, satin ribbon.

Since my sewing machine has this great lettering feature, I take advantage of that to add a few words of support along the top border.

(Greg playing hidden model by holding them up for the full photo shot.)

The second blanket is pretty much the same. This is a nice, pretty and fairly fast design I came up with and seems to work well with the fabric I can get. Purchasing six yards of fleece allowed me enough for three blankets.

This one got the same backing and ribbon work done, but I used a new fabric design for the main area. Rather than flags, this one has sayings like Home of the Brave, Land of the Free and America the Beautiful.

A slightly different words of thanks on this one.

And a shot of the back. The fleece side is soft and warm, the cotton side smooth and cool.

Blanket #3. I still had some of the same fleece left, but found some great, military fabric.

This one says Thank You...For Your Courage!!

Each blanket sent by a Soldiers' Angel requires a tag to the soldier with the name of the person who made it for them. Here's mine.

Ready to be shipped off to soldiers' collection site in NC. Three down...only a few hundred thousand to go!

Want to help? You don't need to sew or crochet...there are lots of ways you can support the troops, including donating to help with shipping costs or writing letters to lonely soldiers! See the Soldiers' Angel site HERE for ideas and ways you can get involved!

I made blanket # 4 on July 4th. And, appropriately, I found some great fireworks fabric to use on the front. The backing is a new, flag fleece I found. Thankfully, Joann's had all their patriotic fabric for 1/2 off, so I was able to load up on the July 4th weekend, to give me enough to make several more blankets.

As you can see, I'm keeping with my standard design...folding the fleece to add to the width and a ribbon to cover the seam.

Working with this new flag design was nice because the flags helped me make sure things were even.

Hard to tell in the photo, but the firework fabric turned out GREAT! Very pretty as there is a lot of glitter in the fabric that makes it very shiny.

My lettering isn't always straight...but it does come from the heart!

Rolled, tagged and ready to ship.

But since there was still room in the box, I decided to whip off one more before I put away my sewing machine for this session. So I used the military fabric along with the flag fleece to crank out blanket # 5.

This one says..."Thank you...You Are our Hero!"

I jumped out of a plane for the first time on 08/08/08. At the jump center there were lots of military flags. And after the jump I was jazzed and motivated. With those two inspirations in my head, it was time to break out the sewing machine and crank out a few new blankets. So on 8/11/08, I managed to make THREE to ship off a full box of blankets! What a great feeling of accomplishment!

Pinning blanket number 6. This one was tricky because it was hard to see the safety pins in that mass of stars!

So there was a lot of feeling around to make sure I put enough pins in...and also got all of them off at the end.

This one gets a blue satin ribbon on each end.

The final blanket. As with all my blankets...sticking to my standard design helps me get faster. I'm now able to knock out one in about 2.5 hrs.

I like the satin look and these stars make the blanket bright.

Number 6 says: "Thank you...For Keeping Us Safe!

Wrapped and ready to go.

For number 7, I used this pretty blue and white fabric that displays important places, buildings and items in our country.

A red ribbon helps break up all the blue and white. As you can see below, the ribbon not only adds a nice enhancement to the blankets, but helps hide the fold over seam.

Blanket # 7.

This one says: "Thank you...For Your Courage!"

One more done and ready to pack.

Room for 3 in the box...so I crank out # 8. If I thought the last one was hard to see the pins...this one was nearly impossible. A FREEDOM theme, the fabric gives the look of pieced fabrics. All that busy color made seeing pins a tough job.

This one's seam gets blue.

A finished # 8 blanket.

Number 8 says: "Thank you...For Protecting Our Freedom."

Blanket number 8 in total...but number 3 for the day...ready to ship!

More will be added as I finish them.

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