Four Great Uncles

I am aware of four Great Uncles who served during WWI.  Because of a warehouse fire in St. Louis in the 1970's, their military records are not available.  Information at their graves might help me determine what kind of service each performed if I looked up the Order of Battle and Department of Defense information about the deployments, which is available in books held in Federal Repositories across the country.  The library at UNC- Asheville is one of those, but I haven't been there to try to investigate. At this point, I'm not sure any of my Great Uncles actually went overseas.

My grandmother's older brother, Uncle Casimir Hybki - Private, 18 Co Discharge Unit

• Uncle Cas' Memorial Marker  He died when I was young - sadly I do not remember him.

My grandfather's older half-brother, Uncle Louis Patyk - Private, Casual Detachment

•  Uncle Louis' Memorial Marker   He died before I was born.

My grandfather's younger brother, Uncle Willard Wohrer Battalion C, 68th PA

• Uncle Willard's Headstone I remember this great uncle with fondness. He was a strong farmer with a good sense of humor.

My Great Aunt Carol's husband , Uncle Irvin Pumphrey. Since it is not marked on his headstone, I don't know his unit. 

• Uncle Pump's Find a Grave memorial  Uncle Pump died before Uncle Cas, and unfortunately, I have no memory of him, either.  From the marriage record I can find on-line, I know his occupation was already "Soldier" when he married my grandfather's younger sister on December 24th 1917.

My quilt from the Where Poppies Grow - Remembering Almo pattern by Denniele O'Kell Bohannon and Janice Britz is done, except for the label.  The fabulous blue-striped red fabric in the "bunting" of the borders was custom hand dyed for this quilt for me by Vicki Welsh.  A click on these images should give you a closer view.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/living/home-garden/article4532707.html#storylink=cpy

I was careful to cut the three curved pieces across the top from the same part of her fabric as the stripes were cut.  You can see in this closeup that the seam between the 3 inch strip and the demi-lune shaped piece beneath it pretty much disappears.  It didn't happen everywhere - couldn't be helped when you have seam allowances to deal with.

 

I was very happy with the Baptist-Fan based inspired quilting design on the borders and the blue and white stripe of the binding fabric.  I don't often cut binding strips on the bias. A half yard was really just enough with the strips cuts at 2 inches for this 71 x 82 inch quilt.  I usually cut my binding 2 1/8th but I would have had a couple of very short strips to contend with and more seams had I done that.

  My other original (?) quilting idea was to put a star like the one at the base of each block's leaf wreath in the wide white border at the bottom of the quilt.

The sashing was treated with free hand feathers, while the blocks got channel quilting and minimal treatment in the colored piecing. This French Star is the one place that got something a little different.

 Tight echos, micro-stippling and 1/2 inch grid cross-hatching completed my quilting plan.
  Here's one more look at that bottom border.