My Quilts #49 – #51 ~ Operation Homefront Quilts 2003

I made these patriotic quilt tops to donate to Jessica Porter for her Operation Homefront Quilts, which provides quilts to the immediate family members of each U.S. serviceperson killed during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Jessica was only 19 years old when she started her project in May 2003, just about the time President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq.  But the soldiers continued to die, and Jessica’s grassroots efforts continued to grow.

Jessica’s requests were simple:  donate completed quilt tops and/or material.  She would finish them and forward the completed quilt to the recipient families.

A year later, in 2004, the American Professional Quilting Systems donated a brand new professional longarm quilting machine to help Jessica keep up.  She could now finish 7-8 quilts a day instead of just one.  By 2010 Jessica, aided by her mother and thousands of volunteer quilters across the USA, had made and distributed some 2,300 quilts.

In 2010 the project was handed over to the Caprock Quilters, a group of military wives at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. The project has since merged with the Home of the Brave Quilt Project.