Block 47 Heroine's Crown

Yes, this is my for real post for block 47.

The Grandmother's Choice blog suggested that The Heroine's Crown was an opportunity for us to choose our own Heroine. I don't have a specific heroine in mind but I allowed my fictitious heroine to have some input on how the block was going to look.

 So when the block came out ten days ago I was away at a retreat and also going to a one day conference. There was no way I was going to be able to make the block. And when I looked at it I wondered how I was going to be able to manage those oak leaves once I did have the time along with all my supplies to hand.

I am currently frantically working on a project which has to be done by August 5 and I elected to make it a hand applique project (why do I do this??!) so when block 47 also needed hand applique it was a foregone conclusion that it would not be quickly done. Instead I have worked on it around the other project.

On this past Saturday I first worked on block 48. In the evening I cut the fabric and started to prep the pieces for hand applique for The Heroine's Crown. A 15 minute effort at the ironing board to unsuccessfully work on the oak leaves in the original pattern convinced me (after a small hissy fit) that I could come up with an alternate version of this block. After all, wasn't the second part of the title "choose your own"?

Again I went to the fabric pile and looked at what fabrics had only been used once. There was this somewhat bold stripe that had only the one appearance as the chimney in the Schoolhouse block 11. And there was that wonderful big green polka dot in the purple background which had also appeared only once in block 2. A plan was made to let the fabrics speak boldly and let the oak leaf wither and disappear in favor of a more simple leaf that would allow the bold stripe to be used.

A little more "bling" was called for I thought so I decided to add the green dots (or gems) to my crown.

And really, the posed photo was a snap to set up. Plenty of bling here!

Gosh, just one more block and this project will have all the blocks revealed. I do hope it's a good one to close out on a high note. But with my other project also needing to be finished (as in quilted, bound, labelled and delivered) by Monday August 5 don't be surprised if I don't get the final GC block done on Saturday.