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...

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.

stack of blocks

I seem to flit from project to project as the list of WIPs grows (works in progress). Weeks ago I had thought I needed to concentrate on finishing the civil war top. So that is what I'm going to talk about here.

The design I had settled on for setting the top required 60 setting blocks. Phew, what was I thinking? But over the weekend I got the last of them done (not quite, as they still need trimming up but the sewing is done) and thought that showed good progress.

So here we have the piles to date. The 53 weekly blocks on the right and the 60 setting blocks on the left. There will still be more setting blocks needed for the outer border but I hesitate to count how many I need in case all progress stops!

Propped behind the blocks is an envelope that has four fabric blocks with pictures of Civil War Generals on them. The plan is to stitch them into four blocks that will go on the outer corners.

I began to lay everything out on the floor and pretty soon made the discovery that I am going to have to move furniture around because I need a really big clear floorspace to lay this out. It is 11 blocks in each direction and the blocks are 8" finished.

Now you might notice there are four empty spaces in the center area. That is where I need four more filler blocks. I have this fabric that has various CW pictures on it. There are a couple showing young soldiers and I thought I might use them as centers in a block; I found a block called army star so that would work.

The dilemma is that since the fabric is printed in sepia and it is not very detailed I can't figure out which soldier belonged to which army. Would you be able to help me with that? If I can I would make a blue block and a grey block but I don't want to have the wrong soldier in the grey block and visa versa.

Here's soldier X above and soldier Y below. Who's who do you think?

Of course I'll still need two more blocks but there are more pictures to cut from the fabric yet so I'll work something out.

I'll look forward to your help with my question. In the meantime I'm still trying to work out some of the glitches with my blog layout here since blogger updated itself. Sometimes there are gaps where I don't really intend them to be. Oh well.

Progress on an earlier project

For this weekend I decided to set aside the red and white project and postpone the piping and binding of The Wedding China and go back to last year's Civil War block of the week.

In 2011 I was following along every week and making the block posted each Saturday morning by Barbara Brackman on her blog. Once the blocks were done they had to be set together. My original intention had been to make them into a quilt for my history loving son's bed. However when another quilt showed up for that bed I hit a pause on the progress.

But I pulled it out again and started sewing. Earlier posts had showed some ideas I was considering and I had made a decision on which one I was going to choose. Now it is "just" a matter of cutting and sewing those 60 setting blocks that are required.

My design wall is not big enough for the full width of the top but I wanted to be able to see how they will look. Here they are just poked up in random order. The top as planned will be 11 blocks wide and not the 7 that show here.

Sometimes when I look all I see is the big dark grey star. But other times I see how all the blocks get to stand alone. This is very much an un-posed work in progress photo. I have postit notes attached here and there to remind me of something about that block.

Maybe I made more progress than I thought. I have 18 blocks finished (well, they need trimming up a little) and another 14 just needing the last center insert strip stitching on.

But the weather was gorgeous and I had lots of work that needed doing in the garden as well as a great antiques/collectibles fair to go to. If it rains tomorrow I might get some more of these blocks done. Or not.

Slow Progress

I've never been a fast project finisher; taking the time to enjoy the process and rework the design as I go is more my style. This red and white project is currently top of my pile and I am making progress on it albeit slow.

Above was my total progress on April 28. As you can see I have been playing with what direction to have the flying geese sashing strips face. And I also have tried swapping out some of the red-on-white cornerstones and replacing them with red. It makes quite a difference. I would not necessarily have the cornerstone fabrics change in each round; if I leave both options up for a while and look at them I'll see which I prefer. Then again, I might decide to alternate them depending on whether the geese are arriving or leaving.

 

Now I have finished 34 of the required 36 star blocks (yes, I am putting off the cutting and sewing of the remaining 73 or so flying geese sashing units - each one has four geese but I try not to do the math as it might prove daunting). In my mind I am trying to have each block use a different fabric combination so that in true scrappy style I am not repeating fabrics. But I am struggling to come up with suitable star fabrics for the outer row of stars. Those two plaid stars I have in the corners may be too dark - I have another couple of small plaid fabrics I could use for the other two corners if I decide they are not too dark. Or my raid on the collections of friends may have to be the way to go. All I need is a 2 1/2" square and a 4" square of red on cream/white (all offers will be gratefully auditioned).

The lighting is not the best for my photos. If it was you might see that I currently have it so that the four center stars are white on white, the next round is cream on cream stars and the final outer round is red-on-white/cream stars.

So that's where I'm at this morning. On today's "to do" list is to take my sewing machine in for service (which will slow down sewing progress for a few days) so I will have no excuse not to be cutting fabrics for the sashing units over the upcoming days.

Your opinions and comments are welcomed.

Beginning a new quilt project

Do I really need to start another quilt project  with as many in progress projects as I currently have. Of course the answer is no! But when our guild member in charge of finding speakers for our meetings asked a few years ago if I had any suggestions I replied right away with "Oh, I'd love to have Jo Morton come". Well, it took a while but Jo is finally in town. She will speak at our meeting tomorrow evening. But before then there was a class on Saturday. Of course I had to go to the class!

Rhubarb Crisp is the quilt that Jo was presenting for the class. It is out of her 2008 book "Remembrances" which I have had for a while - I have previously made her quilt "Peppermint Twist" from this book. A big event in the quilt world last year was the Red and White quilt show in New York. Sadly, I was not able to go. But since then I have been thinking about making a red and white quilt and with quite a pile of red fabrics in my fabric collection I decided the time was right to start working on that idea.

Before the class, since I had the book, I decided to try out the block and sash to see how I wanted to arrange my colors. Having made a Jo quilt before I knew that the blocks would not be big and that her instructions are very thorough and include how to press and her "clipping trick" which helps a lot to have your block lay flat and square. I've photographed my sample to give you a feel for the size - my cutting ruler is a 6 1/2" square.

 

Will I make a red and white combination? Or a white and red one? Will the sashing have the same background as the star block or will it be the reverse? For my sample I sewed four flying geese in the same two fabrics for the sash piece but for the quilt I want to make the sashings have four different fabric combinations in each unit. H'mm, I don't believe it will be a good idea to really count how many combinations I need because I see the instructions say a total of 84 sashing units are needed.

 There is a lot of cutting and trimming to make this little quilt. Here is my cutting mat with enough fabric cut to make twelve star blocks. But I need a total of 36 blocks. And I want them all to be different. I better go count the fabrics in that red pile again.

It is now Monday. The class was Saturday. I chose a seat in the back corner of the room and worked steadily. As always in a group there are the turtles and there are the hares. Trust me, I fall into the turtle category. It seems there has been a goodly amount of cutting sewing and trimming going on. And this is all I have to show so far. Oh well, it was not intended as a "quilt in a day" project after all. Because I am undecided yet on how to arrange the blocks and sashings I will be making a whole lot more before I start seaming blocks with sash units. For instance, will I have all the geese flying only down and to the left as the pattern shows? Or shall I alternate them as shown above?

And as well as trying this and trying that with my fabrics I have also to contend with trying this and trying that to get this posting up. Yes, blogger has changed the way a post is created and this old dog needs to learn some new tricks. So, I'm sorry my photos are not quite all lined up as I want them to be but I'd really rather go sew and cut some more in my sewing room than spend more frustrating minutes trying to get this new thing figured out.

 If you like precision piecing and admire Jo Morton's quilts I do recommend you grab the opportunity to take a class with her if possible. Jo mostly works on making small quilts using reproduction fabrics and in patterns that are inspired by antique quilts. I too like to be inspired by antique quilts and use traditional patterns but I usually choose to make my projects with more modern fabric styles and colors.

I'd love to hear what you think of my newest project. Thank you Jo, it was a great class.