Where Poppies Grow In May

Block 5 in the Remembering Almo project is titled The Airplanes.

 This block gave me some angst in the making. As directed by the provided pattern the striped area is meant to be pieced. Oh no, I thought, that belongs in the "too difficult" basket. Instead I decided to use a striped fabric. H'mm, the idea was sound but the execution? I was away sewing with friends for the weekend and did not have access to a printer much less all my usual supplies; I decided to foundation piece it. Not a good choice as it turned out.

However, I thought about all those servicemen in World War I and how they continued to persevere under very dire circumstances and decided I better persevere too and carry on with the plan.

In May Grandpop was involved in significant action at Gallipoli. Having landed on April 25, his 4th Otago company was involved in a battle from May 2nd through 4th. That battle took the lives of 143 men from the Company but Grandpop was a lucky survivor although he did sustain a gunshot wound to the right shoulder. This took him away from the frontline to an army hospital In Birmingham, England.

 As Grandpop was a foot soldier in WWI he was not involved with airplanes. But my Father-in Law served in WWII in the US military as a pilot in the Airborne Troop Carrier division.

For this month I am honoring his service.

We are fortunate to have my FIL's uniform jacket and I have used it to pose the May block.

TOM 4 Canada Star for Lucie Blackburn

I have only just remembered that I have not put last week's Threads of Memory block here on the blog. Oops.

I am trying to get used to a new camera and the technolgy that goes with it - this is a steep learning curve for me!

When this block came out last week I was away at a quilt retreat. Once the block was finished I'm not really sure if I like those four grey squares but, for now, this is my block four. In reality the dark fabric of the star points shows better. 

That solid grey I am using in all the blocks? If I had realized the challenges of photographing it when I started I may have chosen another fabric. But I also understand that everyone has their computer monitors set differently which accounts for one person in the flickr group who keeps commenting that she loves my purple block. The pale grey floral fabric that I have used here to frame the center star was originally going to be the background fabric that I used in every block for this project until I switched my plan to the solid grey.  

Additionally, remember that I am going to be setting my blocks on point so the little bird will not be running uphill as it is here!

For my fun shot I had to accent the Canada portion of the story. My dear Canadian friend Rhonda has contributed most of the items in this setup - you just have to smile at those owls she made for me. Thanks Rhonda!

Does anyone else find themselves second guessing their color/fabric plan at this point in a project? Or am I more of a perennial ditherer than most of you?