Dixie Diary Month 3

This is another online project I'm doing - see my first posting here .  I don't treat this one with quite the same urgency that Grandmothers Choice gets.

That said, the little pile of fabric is growing and I am enjoying working with a color selection that I do not often use. Although the patterns given on the Civil War blog posts are for 8" or 12" blocks I am making mine in a 6" size.

  For month three the block is named Shouting Yankee Doodle.  I decided to use one of my new purchases from the Marcus fabrics Old Savannah collection. Note to self; when buying a fat quarter try and get the one with the name on the selvedge.

This is the block I first made for month 3. I wanted to use the fabric with stars on it because of the name of the block and also because it is from a Barbara Brackman collection. But this did not really look good to my eye; the stars are not aligned with a 45 degree cut and the color argues just a little with the pale floral alternating fabric.

I am still mulling how to set my blocks. The two plain looking fabrics in front have been chosen as potentials to make the appliqued heart or star from once I decide if the blocks will be straight set or on point. With no pattern on the fabric they should show up against the patterned fabrics I use in the piecing. But they have just a smidge of interest more than a plain solid would.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I found that Ms Brackman had shown my month 1 block on her Material Culture blog this week. If you are not familiar with that go see this entry. The fabric I used for the feature cross in that block is from a small collection named Quilts of Florence Peto the flower pot series by Froncie Quinn for Newcastle Fabrics.

Ooh, now I better go read today's posting on Material culture as it is National Pi day - for those of you without a math focused family member today is March 14 or 3.14 which is  the "magic" number to use in calculating circle dimensions. The post is all about circular quilt blocks and more. My geek son has a geeky friend with a birthday today which always made having pizza on that day an easy choice - round and a pie!

But seriously, what I better do is get started on packing up projects and fabric as I am going on my guild retreat weekend tomorrow morning.