Westering Women Block Five

On our journey west we have arrived at the Platte River. The story for this month is all about how the wagons had to cross the Platte River  “We are traveling up Platte river bottom, the north side” wrote Amelia Knight in 1853. “It is a beautiful river about a mile across, full of Islands and sand bars. As far as the eye can reach the road is covered with teams.”

My challenge was how to deal with the big 6" square of unpieced fabric at the block's center. I wanted to somehow have some blue in there to remember that this block was about a river (albeit one that did not sound particularly blue - it was more about having a sandy bottom and a murky appearance). Looking back at the blocks already completed I felt that this one had some similarities to block 1 and I resolved to go back to how I colored that one and give this block a similar darker border. The curvy bit of blue gets the river idea in there but I'm not sure yet that it is sucessful.

One of the quilters who posts her photos on the Westering Women flickr page also notes the fabrics she uses. I'm going to do that here, perhaps to show you what a wide variety of fabrics I use as I work in a decidedly "scrappy" way.

Outer border combines: a leafy fabric from the latest Barbara Brackman line "Morris Earthly Paradise", a pindot fabric from a Maywood Studios collection, called, believe it or not, "Santa Claus" and the stripe is from FreeSpirit Leaf Dance by Jane Sassaman (as is the inner fabric with the touch of blue). And then my theme fabric with the wagon from the Little House on the Prairie collection by Andover.

We are moving along on the trail now and I am trying to keep pace by making setting blocks as well.