Monday, June 27, 2011

The Battle Rages On

Yeah, I know.  I couldn't come up with a good title for the post and I'm way behind on showing you where I am with the Gettysburg Battle Flags quilt.  This is going to be photo-heavy and hopefully not-too-wordy. You heard it here first!

I've kind of lost track what block I'm on, so here are some snippets, suggestions and comments.  For one of the blocks, I decided it would be a good idea to paper piece a sawtooth border.

DSCN1725 Paper piecing

Paper piecers! Do you have one of those little wooden irons?

DSCN1726 Paper Piecing

They are great for pressing down the tiny pieces of your paper pieced blocks - so you don't have to keep popping up and running over to your iron. They can be used right or left-handed (THANK YOU!!!) and just have such a nice feel to them!

DSCN1727 paper piecing

Highly recommended. Use one, and before you know it, you'll have a nice little line of saw...teeth?

IMG_2752 paper piecing

I did a couple rows and put them with this artillery flag:

DSCN1729 sawtooth border

I moved on to some simpler things after that.

DSCN1732 MESS!!!

Yes, like totally trashing my sewing table!  Exactly.  I need to find a way to put the blocks up on a design wall of some sort.  Quickly.

My overall aim is to use fabrics and blocks historically accurate to the Civil War era. Well... reproduction fabs, but you know what I mean! I decided to toss in an Indian Hatchet, so to speak.

IMG_2780 Indian Hatchet block

I showed the block to my husband and asked him (with no hinting) to guess the name of the block. He came up with "Battle Axe", so I think it must be pretty well-named! I also made some little Cannon Ball blocks...

IMG_2795 Cannon Ball blocks

and incorporated them into a block with one of the artillery battery guidons.

IMG_2796 Block

Get it?  An Artillery guidon with Cannon Ball blocks? Call it "quilt humor meets Army wife/brat humor".

Since the sawtooth border came out so well, I thought I should try my hand at equilateral triangles:

IMG_2797 Equilateral Triangles

Not a bad idea, per se ... but then I thought I should turn the corner with them. Here's a look at the completed block they live in:

IMG_2814

See the upper-right corner?  That's as close of a look as you're going to get.  I ripped it out three times before deciding to leave it.  As I posted to FaceBook, three things to remember:  the Alamo, to be careful with food processor blades and to avoid inset Y-seams at all cost.  What was I THINKING?!?!?  Yeah, OK, it looks pretty cool, though.  From a galloping horse.  And at least I haven't forgotten the Alamo.

Today's goal - a small Ohio Star to put with ... something.  And to come up with a design wall.

Thanks for reading!

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Suddenly I need me one of those little wooden doodads. ;) inalso need to research paper piecing, because I'm totally in the dark on that. Lord help me, why did I sign up for a quilting bee?! I'm so green!

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  2. Those look so hard and challenging to do but they turned out beautiful!

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