Watch an APQS flash mob and help us honor veterans with Quilts of Valor

This Veterans Day, APQS is honoring veterans for their service by raising awareness of Quilts of Valor (QOV) and asking longarm quilters to volunteer their machine skills for a good cause.

QOV, started by Catherine Roberts while her son was deployed to Iraq, provides lap quilts to veterans who have experienced active combat as a way to welcome them home, give them gratitude and provide them rest.

To raise awareness of the organization and its mission to cover every veteran touched by war, we organized a flash mob at the American Quilter’s Society (AQS) QuiltWeek® in Des Moines earlier this year. We partnered with AQS and Grand View University’s music department to perform “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

We had a great time planning the flash mob and loved watching how the quilt show came to a stop while everyone around the APQS booth took a moment to honor veterans with us. We’d also like to thank AQS and Grand View for assisting us in making the flash mob happen.

We hope you’ll find the video above moving and that you’ll be inspired to volunteer your time to longarm a quilt for QOV. Many of the quilts are pieced by beginners and QOV believes strongly that longarm quilting is what transforms the tops into “Cinderella-at-the-ball” quilts.

It’s easy to become a QOV machine quilter volunteer. You should be able to:

• Quilt an appropriate design
• Have balanced stitches of 8-12 stitches per inch
• Provide low-loft quality batting for each top you quilt
• Have a turnaround time of up to 30 days per quilt.

To date, Quilts of Valor has awarded more than 127,000 quilts to veterans. But there are many more who still have not received a quilt. We urge you to consider using your time, talent and APQS machine to create a quilt to honor a veteran.

Read more about QOV’s requirements for longarm quilters and to sign up to be partnered with a quilt-topper.