Prepping for the Next Quilt Project

Debuting on Saturday will be the first block in the latest Barbara Brackman block of the month project; she has named this one "Threads of Memory" and I take the liberty here to give you a quote directly from Ms Brackman

"The theme Threads of Memory refers to the Underground Railroad. Each month you'll get a block named 

for an important place in the story of the network that assisted slaves on the road to freedom. We'll explore true stories of people who lived in slavery, escaped on the "Liberty Line" or helped the fugitives."

 

The quilt groupies who follow her BOM/BOW projects have been actively searching through their fabric collections and/or visiting fabric stores to pull together a good pile of fabric to start the project with. And yes, I'm just as guilty.

 To being with I had a stern conversation with myself and said that I had plenty of fabric still left from the Dixie Diary project - and you can see the evidence above. This will be twelve blocks finishing at 12" with a focus still on the Civil War era. Many people liked my pink and grey color scheme and this will be just fine to continue on with.

 Of course once I was in a quilt shop for another purpose I thought there couldn't be too much harm in picking up just one or two more pieces of fabric to add to the pile and liven up the selection. (Guess how many quilt shops I've visited lately?) Then I began to think about making an essentially monochromatic quilt all in greys. It would represent the dull monotonous life of a slave in the Civil War era. But with a pop of color here and there to represent a few bright spots in life I might hope to make something not too monotonous.

 In one store I found three pieces of grey fabric with birds on them. H'mm, in one of the recent BB projects there were a handful of quilters using bird fabrics and they always added a good spark to the blocks so of course I dutifully purchased said fabrics. As you know I employ a lot of symbolism in my quilt pieces and I thought the birds could represent the longing of the slaves to be as "free as a bird".

And then I walked into a store and found this dramatic grey, black and lime green on white fabric. Wow! I said. I could use the greys left over from The Civil War and The Dixie Diary and some of the lime greens from the Grandmother's Choice project. And with that virtuous thought I added this fabric to the collection.

Of course you can see the dilemma I am now faced with. Will my new project be traditional and use many reproduction fabrics or will it be contemporary with lots of the new "it" color, grey, in modern prints? Or will it mix them all together like I often choose to do in a complete scrappy fashion?

I guess it is going to take a block or two before I settle into one or the other. Or maybe I'll have to be an over achiever and make two blocks each month. Blocks will be released on the last Saturday of each month.

What will it be, what will it be? Stop by each month and find out what happens.

In the meantime, the opening reception for Something Blue is this Sunday so I better be thinking about what I am going to say in my "informal talk". I'd love to see you there.