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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

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.

1 comment:

Cheryl K. said...

When I saw your stripe and that interesting dark brown fabric, I thought your block was super - but against the uniform? It's just wow. Wow.
And Hurrah for Grandpop - I hope that shoulder injury didn't come back to haunt him when he finally got to go home?