Quilts of Valor, made by the Mountain Top Quilters Guild of Vesta, were displayed at the Vesta Community Center on July 4. (See below for more photos.)The Mountain Top Quilters Guild of Vesta held its first ever Quilts of Valor presentation at the Vesta Community Center Fourth of July celebration.The group made 20 quilts to be distributed to local veterans and service members who were touched by conflict and war.Guild member Suze Bailey said she got the idea for the project last year after noticing a variety of veterans wearing clothing symbolizing where and when they served. “It just made me realize how fortunate we were that there were guys willing to go and preserve this,” she said, gesturing to the land and community around her.Bailey, a daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, said she discovered the national Quilts of Valor Foundation and resonated with its goal of “thanking those who served and sacrificed in serving our nation.”“We have a pretty rich history of veterans here. There’s a VFW (Veterans of Foreign War) Post down the way here, and it just struck me as something really important to do,” she said.While the group officially started the project in October, the majority of work began in March as Bailey and another member caught the COVID-19 virus.“We have six people working with us doing various parts of this. So, everyone participated, and it’s been a group effort,” she said.Bailey said she and another woman designed the layout of the quilt, cut the fabric, and created custom kits for the creation of each. Some members then stitched the quilt pieces together before others longarm sewed all the quilt’s layers together.“Marilyn Gearren made all the labels, except a couple, and Evelyn Boyd made the rest,” she said, adding she hopes more guild members participate in the program in future years.Bailey said the group also is looking for more veterans to give the created quilts. “All the 20 here, we dug to find. I mean we called people. We knew people who were vets, we found out who their buds were, and it was a network to get these” names, she said.Those who have a veteran in mind are encouraged to contact the group and fill out a form, including the recipient’s enlisted name, military branch, service dates, war service location, and current location. If the group gets more names than it can make quilts for, Bailey said names will be put into a box and a drawing held before labeling the quilts. “I would really love to get a bunch of names, more than we can make quilts for,” she said.The guild is also seeking donations to buy the fabric and supplies needed to make the quilts. Bailey said she and a few other members funded this year’s round, at around $100 per quilt. “At 20 quilts, that’s a big number, and that’s just materials,” she said.Bailey said each quilt is made using the quilting standard of 100 percent cotton, and fabric bolts were purchased from Quilted Colors, a fabric store on Stuart’s Main Street, at a store price instead of wholesale price.As per the Quilts of Valor website guidelines, all the quilts were at least 55-inch by 65-inch, and as big as 72- by 90-inch. “All our quilts are in that range. They’re not all exactly the same because the patterns worked differently,” she said.For more information, visit Faceboom.com/MountainTopQuiltersGuild, www.mountaintopquiltersguild.com, or www.qovf.org.
