Week 44 Union

There was a lot of muttering and redoing of seams for this week's block. But I got it done.

Yesterday I was looking through my pile of fabrics trying to make a final decision. Would it feature that fabric with Union written on it? That one is an oddball shade of blue and it is hard to find other blues in my pile to go with it. Could I use a fussy cut image of a young soldier? Well, I might have done if I could decide if he was a Union or a Confederate soldier and besides, that particular fabric is all sepia toned even though it has some great civil war images on it and so does not really fit into the color scheme I have chosen. After rejecting several tentative selections I decided that I wanted to make a pretty block for this week so that is what I went with.

And to carry on with the pretty theme I took my block outside because today, with a good blue sky and the fall colors, is much prettier than the bizarre weather we had yesterday; snow while the autumn leaves are still on the trees and the busy lizzies were looking the best they have all season. Of course the sun is very bright and it has made what I think of as blue asters look purple when providing the backdrop for my block.

But, by then, the memory card flashed full so I had to come inside and in putting the photos on the computer the low battery light came on so this is it for my pretty poses for week 44.

Thank you to Cheryl and her 1/16th" cutting directions for saving my sanity on this weeks block.

Week 43 Right Hand of Friendship

I'm giving you the guilty conscience view of my block for this week. I have been out these past three days on our quilt group retreat. There is a lot of conversation and sewing going on in the room and past history has taught me not to attempt any projects that might require careful concentration.

The block for this week of the Barbara Brackman Civil War block of the week project was not inherently difficult to construct until you factor in choosing the fabrics in a ten minute burst before you dash out of the house. And then cutting and sewing them amidst the swirl of activity in the room with 18 quilt group members. My blocks usually end up measuring the required 8 1/2" square but this one was a smidgen off in one direction so I decided to edit the photo to make the block look better.

Additionally, I thought it should have both grey and blue featuring.

I believe we are down to the last ten blocks now; wonder if there will be any more applique? Regardless of what the last block patterns are going to be it is certainly time to give consideration to the setting for this quilt. On point? Square on? Plain sashing? Interesting cornerstones? All these are options to ponder in the remaining few weeks.

In the meantime we have surely been treated to some interesting insights into the history surrounding this period in American history - both from a general and a quilters perspective.

Week 42 H is for Hospital

This should have been an easy block to construct but something happened to my accuracy. After a while I decided to leave it a bit wonky since the hospitals then could also perhaps be described the same way.

For the second week in a row we had a block that needed colors used in a certain way to accurately carry through the idea. In the case of H is for Hospital the background was meant to be yellow and the H was meant to be green as a representation of the "flag" used to denote a hospital. Neither of those colors are in my palette for this project so I had to go with what I did.

And about the fabrics I did use; obviously I had to use my one theme pale grey fabric as my rule is that it must be in every block. I had been waiting and waiting to use the blue bandana fabric that Cheryl had found and given to me weeks and weeks ago. Today, I decided it made a good contrast with the pale grey and the paisley in the blue fabric mimicked the paisley in my theme fabric.

Both armies had to have hospitals so it was fine to combine grey and blue in the one block.

And the scary thought for today? This is week 42 - that means we are only ten weeks away from the end of the year. Can you believe it?!

Week 41 Red, White and Blue quilt

This one was going to be a challenge no matter which way I looked at it. Since my preset color scheme is grey and blue there is no way I could make a block with red, white and blue in it.

Having regard for that issue I decided that there was no point in making myself crazy and using the instructions which called for not only cutting templates but also precise piecing and a dreaded center point where every difficult seam had to meet exactly. So I went with an alternate and paper(foundation) pieced the block. You'll note that I chose to use a blue fabric patterned with a five pointed star.

The end result is that I have a completed block.

Week 40 Order Number Eleven

When this block was posted last Saturday I knew I needed to do it using a turned under, hand done applique method. And the reason for that is I had just done a class with Karen Kay Buckley who specializes in such a technique. I just did not plan to have so little time to work on it.

But here it is, done at last.

This block was one that I had on my long term "to do" list although I had previously not had a pattern for it. So I was quite pleased when it showed up as the block last week.

I enjoyed the story that Barbara Brackman posted with this block.