TOM 12 - Rochester Star for Amy Post and Harriet Jacobs

Here we are at the last block of this block of the month  from Barbara Brackman's Civil War blog project "Threads of Memory"; block 12 Rochester Star for Amy Post and Harriet Jacobs.

As you may remember I had some personal rules that I was working with: all the backgrounds used a solid grey fabric (Manatee from Free Spirit fabrics), had a bird print in there likely in the center, used a particular lime green (from the Just Color range by Studio E Fabrics - now discontinued) pop of color and tried to use only once all the other grey fabrics.  But every now and then I gave myself permission to break my own rules.

Block 5 did not have a good center for one bird print so I used lots of birds flying around a center of the lime green.

Block 10 again did not have a center patch so I decided not to have any birds either; instead there were stripes to represent the "jail" the slaves on the Underground Railroad were hoping to escape.

Block 12 did not use the same lime green fabric that all the others did. As an alternative I was finally able to use this lovely grey and white fabric with lime green leaves.

 For fun I thought I might show you what some of my fabrics look like now. See how great it was to be able to cut around those dominant red roses for this last block?

I also tried to balance out the birds. With hindsight I would really rather I had used only that one bird print at the top. But by the time I realized that I was not keen on remaking that many blocks. And besides, the stories had great variety so why not the "birds" too as they represented those who were trying to fly away to freedom. In addition to being sure I only used that top bird print six times I also had to be careful that I had three birds facing left and three facing right.

Once I looked at the blocks as a collection put on point, which is how I had decided right at the beginning I was going to set them, the April block was not a success as I had originally made it. Consequently yesterday I spent some "quality time" with the seam ripper and replaced eight outer light triangles with the standard solid grey. It makes a lot of difference and I am happier with that block now.

Now comes the time to set all the blocks together and make a quilt top.  I'm going to show you a sneak preview...

The blocks are all up on my design wall and I am able to see how many lovely ones there are.  It's hard to say which is my favorite because I have to choose between, oh let me see...3, 7, 11 and 12. But what about 8, 9, 6 or 1? And if I go look at what the flickr people had to say about them I notice that blocks, 1, 2, 3, 9 and 11 were marked as a favorite.

Which all goes to show three things: I'm very analytical aren't I?!, I'm also detail focused but most of all, there were some fabulous stars in this project.

Keep checking back in to see my finished top. And maybe you'll even make a comment.