Sharing fabric cuttings with my worldwide friends

Monday, July 30, 2012

Watch this space for a new project!

Grandmother's Choice - The Saturday Morning Post is the title of the new block of the week to be blog /published by Barbara Brackman beginning September 1, 2012. In 2011 I followed eagerly along on Barbara's Civil War block of the week and really enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with making a block a week. When the new concept, To Recall the Fight for Women's Rights (women's suffrage) was announced earlier this year I was pretty soon sure I would be starting this new project.

This past Saturday Barbara posted about potential color schemes for this project (you can see her blog at www.grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com) and I was off and running in my head with ideas. Being a proud New Zealander (New Zealand women were the very first to be granted the right to vote) I decided that my color scheme should in some way reflect my heritage. If you go look at the posting on color schemes you will see that one of the first ones mentioned is purple, green and white which were the colors adopted by the movement in England.

In New Zealand the movement adopted the white camellia bloom as their emblem (white flower with a gorgeous, glossy green leaf) while also acknowledging the standard bearer colors of purple and gold. My thinking for now (admittedly before the first block is even posted) is to have a green and white color scheme with highlights of purple and golden yellow.

So when I walked into our church on Sunday morning and noticed right away the flower arrangements (we don't have flowers every Sunday - perhaps there was a wedding or a baptism this weekend) I thought it was a message as to what my color scheme should be.






I'm sorry the photo is a little blurry but I could not take the picture yesterday during Mass and when I went back this morning the flowers were obviously past their best and the lights were not on. But I'm sure you can see that the color scheme is white, green and purple (lilac).

Watch this space. In the meantime I am off fabric shopping for just the right white fabric to use as my main fabric to appear in every block. This time I will purchase four or five yards to avoid the problem of running out mid project as happened on my Civil War project.

Will you be joining in on this new "block of the week"? Oh, go on, it will be fun!

Almost Heaven, West Virginia...

I am on a mission to get the Civil War top together before the end of the month. H'mmm, that is in just over 26 hours. I can do it I'm sure.

One last block was holding me up. Week 48 West Virginia. When I went to pin it to the row it looked off in terms of size and when I measured it my sinking feeling was confirmed. Perhaps I could steam press it into shape? Tried that and it didn't work. So the decision was made to remake the block (that would be the third block to be resown; well, out of 53 that's not so bad is it?). This time I changed where the bias edges were and the block came out a little better (s'hhh,I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase measure twice, cut once? I used a variation on that; make it bigger and cut it down).






Here is the remade version. It is now sewn into position in row three. The entire top is now sewn together in three portions. Tomorrow, it being the last day of July, I have but two long seams left to do and my goal of a finished top will be achieved.

And yes, theoretically the title of the post should have been "Take Me Home, Country Roads" which was a tune made popular by John Denver. But I was thinking it was called "West Virginia" and would be a good title for my post so a compromise had to be arrived at.

I'm almost there. Hold your breath now...



Saturday, July 7, 2012

Blocks 54 to 59

With major power outages this week all quilt work ground to a halt. Thankfully, the lights are back on now and with outside temperature and humidity levels uncomfortably high I decided I could try to make more progress on my Civil War quilt top.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my question as to the identity of soldier X. It is now known that his name was Edwin Jennison and he fought for the Confederates. So his block is complete:

The Army Star - Confederate

 I am still awaiting clarification of Soldier Y. In the meantime I have made an Army Star - Union.

 For the four corners I will use portraits of well known Generals. So we begin with General Grant above.

 And General Meade. H'mm, both of these are made using the same blue fabric selections but clearly my photography is not accurate in color.

 Here we have General Lee. And still waiting his turn on the cutting table is General Jackson.

I thought some simple flying geese would frame these portraits to bring the blocks up to the required 8" size. And so they do but oh my, what a lot of sewing.

Yesterday I was taking refuge from the heat in a book store that had deliciously cool air conditioned air. While browsing the shelves I came across this book and recalled that Rosemary Youngs had been mentioned by Barbara Brackman in one of her posts. I decided to get the book because there is a lot of good reading in it as well as a large number of blocks and ideas.

For instance, on page 96 there is a block called "Despair Not" and in the center is none other than my soldier Y. So I take that as a good omen that I should not despair in finding his true identity. Blocks named "Naval Victory", "Virginia has Seceded" and "Possession of Manassas" all are potentials for my last two blocks.

I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.