Week 25 Calico Puzzle

With great excitement I actually got the block for this week finished today, Saturday, the day it was posted. It has been weeks since I was able to do this.

Some weeks ago I noticed that each block was noted as being either a Union or Confederate block. I took that as a cue to select from either the blue or the grey stash for that days block. But maybe I need to get the pile of 25 blocks out and lay them out together and see if this is a good thing to do or if I should revert to my prior practice of combining blue and grey in the same block.

Looking at the name for the block I wondered if it might have been more apt to dub it "math puzzle". The first sentence in the instructions read "These measurements will give you pieces a bit large which you can then trim to an 8 1/2" square (8" finished) block." That was a clue to say "proceed with caution". Once again I wondered if these blocks came originally as 12" blocks that have been scaled back to 8". This was a 9 patch block made to 8" finished size and so the math was challenging. I did trim pieces all the way through and not just at the end. My last task was to trim the 8 3/4" block down to 8 1/2" by trimming 1/16" from all sides. Not what I like to have to do.

Week 24 Ladies Aid Album

Here I am with this week's block. I had to ponder this one for a little while since red is not really in my fabric selections for this project and the block is meant to show an early "red cross". In the end I decided to go with the blue colorway as this is a union block and choose floral fabrics in honor of the ladies who provided all that aid.

My supply of the pale grey fabric that I have used in every block so far is getting close to being used up. Unless I can find a new source for it (it has been discontinued from the Jinny Beyer palette in that colorway) I will need to switch to another similar fabric.

I am still expecting an applique block - surely that seven sisters star applique way back in week 3 will not be the only one. And I better do some more serious thinking about how I am going to set these so I can be on the lookout for a sashing fabric.

Another couple of weeks and we will be halfway on this project.

In response

to a request I am going to show you a "full frontal" of two of the quilts shown briefly in a recent post.


Here again is "Welcome to Chestnut Ridge".


And here is "Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue".

Please understand the quality of the photographs is impacted by the circumstances of taking them i.e. in a show, looking up with bright lights from above.

Week 23 Illinois Roads

Such a simple block for this week. In common with many I tried to complicate the issue by trying to find the perfect fabric such that it looked like a road or that it was a fabric that said something about Stephen Douglas or Abraham Lincoln. And I gave up on the perfect fabric search and settled for this pretty blue stripe that I added to my fabric collection while shopping at our show this weekend. My roads look like the multi lane highways of Illinois today and not the roads of history.

In the end I had to bend one of my own self imposed rules that say I should follow the directions; for this block the darker fabric is meant to be on the outer edge but as you can see I reversed that.

I was happy to hear from someone who was at Quilt Market (the big show where store owners go to make their purchases for their shops) this spring that grey is a new "in" color. I hope it turns up in time to make an impact on my quilt top. If anyone would see a blue and grey stripe fabric do think of me and let me know as it might be something I could use. In the back of my mind I know I need to be thinking about sashing and setting these blocks.

While you're waiting

for the posting showing this week's civil war block I thought you might like to see some photos from our quilt show which has kept me occupied from Thursday thru today. What I will post will be photos of quilts I had some connection with that were displayed at the show.


Here is a distant shot of "Welcome to Chestnut Ridge". This quilt is not mine; I made the top as a house warming gift for my friends Cheryl and Norris when they moved into their new home built for their retirement. Since Cheryl likes to quilt I made the top and gave it to them for Cheryl to finish. I named the top "Welcome to Chestnut Ridge". The quilt features bears paw blocks with a central block depicting a bear among the trees, because I thought they would see lots of bears in their new location. The flying geese border was made with a variety of grey fabrics to represent all the rock that was found on the site of their new home; a lot of rock was made into retaining walls for their property so this was an important part.


Cheryl did her magic with the quilting of this. The title I gave it was because they found evidence of chestnut trees having grown on their property but that had become victims of disease. In the upper left corner I placed a twig of chestnut leaves.


Next is my quilt "Don't it Make your Brown Eyes Blue". This quilt was made for our quilt group President's Challenge called "Color my Quilt with Song". All participants chose a bag with the name of the quilt written on it; inside the bag were two fat quarters of fabric. We had to make a quilted item for the show with the song as the inspiration. The focal color of the quilt was to be the color in the song title and there was to be something musical depicted on the face of the quilt along with use of the two fat quarters and other inspiration from the song title or singer.


I researched the meanings for "eye"; on the online dictionary there were at least 28 definitions of the word and I chose to use the one that was "the small colored portion at the center of a flower". Flowers that I grow in my garden were to be the focus of my quilt. The brown eyed susan's were a central feature and I changed the "eye" on a couple of them from brown to blue. Those two blue eyed flowers had crystals sewn dropping from the eye to pay homage to the singer Crysal Gayle. The central yellow flowers are from a pattern by Bobbie Jarrett and portions of the quilt were inspired by or adaptations of portions of patterns by Edyta Sitar, Kate Laucomer and Lisa Bongean. The truly amazing quilting was done by my friend Cheryl.

And finally the raffle quilt. Each year at our show we have a raffle quilt and for this year's show it was the responsibility of our chapter to provide the quilt. A couple of years back I put up my hand and volunteered to be in charge of making a quilt to raffle. It has been a long two years but this afternoon at the show the winning ticket was drawn.


Here are members shown selling tickets. Our quilt is in the background - the one on the right. I am proud to say that it was an effort solely of our quilt chapter beginning with the design by a member (Ann) then the cutting, piecing and applique, by selected members, and the quilting by another member (Cheryl). We called our quilt "Autumn in Reston - A Hometown Celebration". In addition to all the labor being done on a volunteer basis by members we also purchased all the fabrics locally to give support to local quilt shops.

Our show is over for this year and I must now get busy if I am to have more than one quilt to enter in the show next year.

And now I better get busy with week 23, Illinois Roads, for the BB civil war block of the week project.

Week 22 Blockade

After my marathon effort last week when I got all caught up here I am several days late in sewing this weeks block. Oh well.

The lesson for this week indeed is seams and pressing as mentioned in Cheryl's blog. At one stage this afternoon as I passed through the kitchen someone asked was I making progress. Oh yes, I replied, for every three seams I sew I unpick (rip out) one. But it rapidly became for every seam I sew I redo it three times.

For color selection I saw this one as being the Union surrounding the Confederates. Thus while most participants were making the center four triangles the same fabrics as the outer four I wanted to have confederate grey in the center with the union blue on the outer edge holding them in with the snake - I am a tiny bit out of order by making the snake grey but it is important to the block to make that on point effect with pale colors. And, since my plan all along has been to make the block using the directions given by BB, I could not substitute those pieced triangles for a single piece of fabric as others have done.

Oh and let me tell you this is not the most perfect sized of my blocks. Plus I had to indulge in the little clipping trick on the seams on the reverse side. But I have a finished block!

And here it is:

Week 21 Underground Railroad

This block has a number of different names but for the purpose of this project Barbara Brackman has settled on Underground Railroad. It was an easy one to make while I was away from home and not having all my usual sewing/electronic equipment with me to use.

Here is the block:


I will be interested to hear your thoughts on the red paisley fabric I have used as my backdrop. It is from the Simple Abundance collection by Bonnie of Cotton Way and Camile of Thimble Blossoms for MODA.