Block 8 Rocky Road to Kansas: 1912

This weekend I was away for our guild three day retreat (as mentioned in a previous post). Although I was able to see the blog post about week 8 and make the block on Saturday I am only now home and able to do my write-up.

Mentioned several times in Ms Brackman's post was that this block was traditionally done as a string pieced block and it was important to me to honor that part of the history (even if I did have to "create" the scrappy strings!).

My photo had to be taken in poor light once I returned home this evening. But you will know that my background is the same fabric I have used in each block in this project.

The name of the block "Rocky Road to Kansas" reminded me of the roads I used to ride my bike on to the school bus stop as well as the roads that led to home for my first 20+ years. They were very rocky roads - living in the country we had no smooth "tar seal" (as we called it) on our roads. Oh no, instead the roads were "paved" with crushed limestone and it was not a tiny crush either. There were many days when the bike was walked/pushed home with me in tears with blood dribbling down one knee or elbow after skidding out and falling on that "rocky road". That recollection brings new meaning to the word "suffragette"!!

Getting back to this weekend; on Saturday morning several of the retreaters left our hotel to go to a quilters "stash reduction" sale. As my stash is already more than substantial I made a conscious decision not to go. But when the shoppers came home and had their show and tell I had to admit to a few pangs. And when Jeanne tumbled out all the fabric she purchased and I saw this wonderful print of big floppy purple chrysanthemums I was bold enough to ask if I could buy it from her. Jeanne was generous enough to give it to me and I used it right away as the center square for this block 8. Thank you Jeanne and also Jean who gifted me with another piece or two that are in the appropriate colorway for this BOW project.

Here I "posed" my block surrounded by the Happy Scrappy Houses which were the retreat blocks. We got 38 blocks turned in so it was decided there would be four winners : the first name drawn won 10 blocks and then three more winners each got nine blocks. And, ta dah, I came home with nine blocks. That was a happy surprise as my name was drawn almost last on each of the three days for the fat quarter giveaway and then again this afternoon for the big prizes.

Stay tuned...I may write more this evening.