Block 23 Girl's Joy - An Ounce of Persuasion

This week's block was all about very youthful images of girls being used to promote the suffragist cause so I felt a need to dial back the intense colors I have been using in many blocks and try and capture a more girlish look.

 It took many tries with the camera in an endeavor to get the corner squares to look correct. It still is not right but I decided it is good enough. Once more I pulled out that very soft toile and I selected a picture, which I felt illustrated a girl's joy (sitting with her puppy), to place in the very center of my block.

And for my posed shot I wanted to again make it all about girls joy - in this case a photo of my sisters and I. Although we live half a world away now they are very much in my mind currently.

Yesterday afternoon I picked up my previous Barbara Brackman Civil War block of the week project, The Blues and the Greys, from the longarm quilter (Su). When I walked into the room the quilter had hung my quilt on her quilt stand and it made quite an impact to look at it that way. It was good for my ego when Su told me that someone else who saw it while she had it said "oh I love that quilt. Do you think it is for sale?" 

While the quilt is on the longarm frame the quilter is up close and personal and Su commented that she really liked the way I cut fabric. At first I could not quite figure out what she meant but all became clear when she carried on to point out how stripes were always neatly balanced and centered, block centers featured fussy cut flowers and the like. I was further able to show her that certain fabric motifs were chosen because of the name of the block e.g. the Indiana Puzzle where I used a copper colored fabric depicting Lincoln in a block that had a circle. A copper penny was symbolic of the hatred of the war and Lincoln at that time.

So I was happy to see that my careful attention to detail is noticed. In this current project, influenced by the very active flickr group, I am again encouraged to make very careful deliberations in my fabric selections. Even after happily playing with fabric to make quilts for more than thirty years I can still learn new things and improve my skills.