Westering Women - Block 12: Road to California

This block closes this series.  It's an easy one to construct, but I took my time choosing fabrics from the selection I had set aside for this project so that I was sure to include two I hadn't used before.

I probably made this last weekend but didn't get the photo done until yesterday when the light was not very good.  I think the block is much prettier than it appears here.

I've been too distracted with my own family history to appreciate the stories behind this series as much as I might have.  Quilting has been taking a back seat this year, but my family discoveries are mostly not as colorful as my quilts, though I may some day do like some of the genealogy bloggers and tell a success story or two.  But I have finished quilting the Hexathon quilt and am ready to stitch the binding on, so that one will show up here fairly soon as a finished project.  I still have the blocks from the previous Civil War series to put together in a quilt before I'll work on this one. And there's a quilt for a family member who already had a quilt but has recently upgraded to a larger mattress, so I've got some sewing to do!

Thanks to Anna Banana...

Here's my Westering Women Bear's Paw block, revisited -

Anna-Banana gently pointed out I had rotated one of the four-patches.  Now they all are oriented as intended.

She also asked about my comment that I might be quilting the small Hexathon quilt for weeks to come - well, mostly it's just because there's no close deadline, so I have other priorities!  (Holidays are a part of the slowness.)

Westering Women - Bear's Paw

I was late making November's block - it came out just before a trip to Chicago to see my family.  I've made plenty of Bear's Paw blocks before - but they didn't have the four four-patch blocks for the feet (the white triangles make the claws.) To change this one up, I made it the negative of the blocks I'd done before (light paws on dark background instead of the other way around.)

Only one more block for this project.  I have the Hexagon quilt loaded on the quilting machine, but haven't put the first stitch in yet. If I do only a little every day, it could take weeks even though it's a small quilt.

Westering Women and the Hexathon is over

My Westering Women block for October - I wanted to emphasize the star points, and have them light colored.  Then I thought I needed a bright fabric for contrast, so the little lattice print came in to the mix, and  seemed to want to be in small pieces. 

The last hexathon block was a complicated one and I only need 25 blocks for my setting.  These are my final three.  You get a sneak peak at my setting fabric with a couple of these - I used these as "leaders and enders" for the Westering Women block, forgetting that I hadn't photographed all the blocks yet.  (The setting fabric on the lower left corner of this one is not yet sewn on, but the block looked sad with a missing corner.)  The hand-dyed fabric is from Vicki Welsh.

I used foundation paper piecing for this block - this set of gradient hand-dyes is also from Vicki.

And my final block - I should try to fix a couple of those Y-seams.  I was running low at this point in the Hexathon!  But I love the combination of Vicki's shibori dyed points and the commercial batik.

With a jump start on the setting of these, I should have this colorful little quilt put together soon.  The Westering Women quilt has two more blocks to go and I don't have a setting plan for them.  My Civil War quilt blocks have been finished for over a year and I do have a setting design and all the fabric purchased.  I just haven't had the motivation to see that quilt finished?

Westering Women and Hexathon blocks for September

I just don't upload to the computer as often as I used to - here are my quilting efforts for the block programs for September

The Westering Women block was called "Sage Bud for Fort Laramie."  I thought I was done using that pale blue fabric that makes up the buds, but this one called for it.

 The brown stripe was a shirting fabric I purchased probably in the late 1970's.  I cut a shirt for myself out of it and never made it.  After my mother died, I found the pieces, still pinned to the pattern and took it home and decided to use it for quilting.  This was the first time using it in large pieces - the wrinkles did not iron out of it.  I may simply have to quilt it heavily to disguise it.

And here are four hexathon blocks that I don't have much to say about.  This first one was nice and easy and I think Vicki Welsh's hand dyed stripe makes it exciting: 

 

I can't really say the "nice and easy" part about these next two, though the second one also benefits from two of Vicki's hand dyes.

This last one though is a variation on one of the earlier blocks and also has Vicki's fabric for two of the three fabrics (the paler blue green was a commerical hand dye).  That particular week's block included a curved applique element, as though laid over the six points of the star shape featured in many of these hexagon blocks and I didn't think it would be all that effective in my brights.  So an easier choice helped me stay current with the program:

HIP HIP HOORAY I recently figured out how to set these colorful blocks!  My original thinking would have had an alternate hexagon or other shape out of a dark dark blue, perhaps flecked with yellow or white or with little stars on it.  But a couple of weeks ago, I helped in a volunteer effort to stuff the goodie bags for the attendees of Quilters Take Manhattan, a fundraising program for the Quilt Alliance that took place late in September.  For my few hours of work, I was rewarded with some of the fabric donations, and after washing them all, the fat quarter piece went up on my design wall to ponder for a different purpose.  Pretty quickly I could see it worked well with these blocks and promptly ordered some more. It's a choice not within my usual style at all, but then, these blocks are also in that category.

Some catching up with block programs

I got more behind on the Hexathon blocks preparing for my trip to Chicago than I realized.  I finally finished four of these before the pattern for the fifth one came out last week.  Here they are, in whatever order Blogger decided they should be in, which has nothing to do with anything I can figure out.

This one I pieced traditionally.  It's was not easy, though it doesn't have that many pieces.  Lots of scrappy pinks and magentas from that batik scraps collection I was given.

This one I just finished today. It too was traditionally pieced.  It was much easier than the one above.  Those fabrics were hand-dyed by Vicki Welsh.

This next has foundation-paper-pieced triangles so it went together pretty easily in spite of the oddly shaped pieces. The turquoise blue is also from Vicki - the darker is a commercially dyed fabric.

I also foundation paper pieced this block - it was quick and could have used up more batik scraps, but I decided I wanted these turquoises and I didn't have enough of that in the scraps.  The semi-solid is also from Vicki.

I never want to attempt this at 8 inches again. The gray fabrics around the star were batik scraps, the other colored fabrics are from a selection of batik fat quarters Joyce gave me. I decided to try my hand at a color concept I read about years ago.  I think I got what I was going for, though you can't see it in this photo - the yellow is really much brighter than it appears.  And though this is far from perfect, some of what appear to be wrinkles are actually just the prints.

Ready to see what next week brings, I went back through all the old posts on Barbara Brackman's blog and wrote down the options for simpler blocks she gave us with some of those - I'm going to try to be more sensible than to do this sort of block again!

And finally, there was a nice 12 inch block for the Westering Women project.  This is called Chimney Rock.  I decided to use the medium gray fabric to look rocky - it will give me a place to quilt but looks a little sad in the corners with the snazzy stripes.  Lots of Y seams in this block, but at this scale, the piecer has a little wiggle room.

Westering Women - month six: Hill and Hollow

After working on all those hexathon blocks, this seemed straightforward.

I think this would be a great block to set as an entire scrappy quilt.

We have reached the half-way mark on this project. I continue to work along on the family correspondence, though my ancestors' family didn't go all the way to Oregon - their destinations were in Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.  There's only a little detail about their journeys, by boat to St. Louis with their baggage and then over land by wagon as in Barbara Brackman's description.  But none of them were on the road to cross the Rockies.

This is from Uncle Abel's first letter after his family arrived in Kansas, written on July 18th, 1868:

"After so long a time I will try and scratch a few lines to you. You are aware we started from there on the 9^th of June and I will tell you we put in just one good month in getting here we found our folks all well with a small addition of a small boy a bout three months old. Our horses stood the trip in good style no sign of being lame and a better pulling team I do not want. We found on our route through Missourie a very broken country with a plenty of fruit and of all kinds. And there seemed to be no end to the wheat crop on every hill side there was wheat and of the biggest kind corn generally looks bad through Mo. and Kansas so far as I have seen there has been one continual rain here and how long it will continue is hard to tell."

Most of the letters I have were written by the men of the family - some, written by the younger generation will quote their mothers, "Ma says tell you... "  These remarks give the distinct impression that the women simply had too much work to do to write letters.  Correspondence with family back in Indiana was a Sunday afternoon activity taken up by the men.

Westering Women - Block 5 The Platte River

This was a straightforward block to piece, but the large center stumped me. Most of the prints I am drawing from are on too small a scale to be suitable for this 6 inch center.  I decided this print will do, though it's a little dark to play the center role for my taste.

Although it appears I cropped off too much of the right edge of my block, I like the effect of my fabric choices better seeing the photo of the block than I thought I would while I assembled the 49 pieces.  Yes, most people would use strip piecing, but I'm using scraps and don't have long strips to cut.  And even if that weren't the case, counterintuitively, I find my piecing is far more accurate when I don't strip piece. It's too easy for me to stretch one fabric while I sew or press, or let the one underneath slide away from the needle a little.  So I cut each piece to size, and stitched them together one by one.

Westering Women - Block 4 Lone Elm

I've never really liked tree blocks made of triangles, but I didn't mind making just one - my tree trunk is not as thick as the pattern suggested - I wanted to have that dark blue outline and the leaves and berries just the way they appear.

I guess I flipped the upper right quadrant around in the making but I rather like having the white flowers scattered more within the tree than the way I had planned them to go. 

Westering Women - Block 3 Sweet Gum Leaf

This block has a combination of a lot of Y seams, a lot of seams meeting in the middle, and a bit of applique - I was surprised not to hear more grumblings from the participants -

I started to cut out the background fabric before realizing I was making a 12 inch block and with only a "snippet" - a quarter of a fat quarter - it was not big enough to make the lower part of the block.  I decided to use muslin rather than starting over when I figured out all of the backgrounds I wanted to use for this were snippet-sized.  I think it will be fine in a quilt.

Westering Women - Block 2 Indian Territory

The challenge with this block was to find a fabric to make good use of the large (6 inch) center square.  I had this print and thought it appropriate -

As my friends are aware, I've been transcribing letters written by my third great uncles and their families, written in the mid to late 1800's.  With this Indian Territory block, I could have chosen a letter from Uncle Lyman. a doctor who practiced medicine on the western border of Missouri (west of Neosho), and treated residents in the Indian Territory west of that.  But since I have a log cabin for my block center, this letter from Uncle Abel dated January 2nd is my text, with Abel working on one to pay his bills. I particularly enjoyed the description of the furnishings in his own house, so I included that here.  Abel had just moved to Kansas the summer before.

The letter is postmarked (hand-written) Elizabethtown, Kansas - which I have learned is a town that no longer exists. (Fernando is Abel's son, Sarah is Abel's wife, and Dor is Calvin's mother, Abel's sister.)

Dear Friends, Again I will try and scratch a few lines in answer to your kind letter which found us as usual (with the ague). Fernando had a chill yesterday for to begin the new year with. I think this not a very healthy place (for us at) any rate there has not been one week at a time but some of us have been sick. We have had a cold winter so far we had some six or eight inches of snow but the weather turned warm and most of the snow went off then new years eve it turned cold again. Fair again today the wind in the north and thaws but a little I want to commence a small job in the morning if not too cold finishing off a log house. I want to pay off my doctor bill at that and then if I can get work I shall try to get money enough to take me out of Kansas at least of this part of it. Land is higher here than with you partly owing to the Railroad excitement. The Galveston Rail Road will pass with in a mile of us and that makes a great difference in the price of land in this country. They are at work sixteen miles north of us and laying the track at the rate of one mile per day at this rate we will soon have a road. This county has voted three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in bonds to the Rail Roads for which they get nothing but the fun of paying the interest for thirty years and besides this the company have every alternate section of land twenty miles wide across the state which will keep settlers out until the land shall have been appraised and brought into market again but at what price nobody can tell, but most all think that it will be from $3 to $7 per acre (I think I shant bite).... Sarah says tell Dor we have the nicest little stove for which we paid $27,60 cts our furniture consist of 1 table 4 home made plank bottom chairs no bedsteads but I have timber out the door to make two.

At that point, Fernando takes up the pen to write a couple of pages to his cousin Calvin, then Abel finishes with more discussion of local politics and prices - all very interesting but this is enough for today's post!   But if you are interested, here is a link that tries to explain Elizabethtown's demise - the railroad did not go there after all.  http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ks/elizabethtown.html

Westering Women - Block 1 Independence Square

Barbara Brackman has started a monthly block of the month on the post-Civil War westward migration. You'd think I could quote family letters on this topic, but not very many are from women, and I haven't transcribed many of the ones that are relevant yet.  That on-going project might take me another couple of years and there's no hurrying the process.  (I've done everything through 1869 but the letters go through the 1880's.)  For now for this series, I'll just make the blocks, but I do love the topic!

I like this first month's block, called Independence Square, made entirely of rectangles and squares.  Barbara featured facts and photos of the huge wagon trains that lumbered out of Independence, Missouri to make the overland trek on the Oregon Trail.  You can read about it at this link:  http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/westering-women-block-1-independence.html

I changed the value placement a little from the model blocks.

I decided to limit my color palette compared to my previous Civil War blocks, but I had a lot of fabrics left over I thought I should use. A quick stop at Pieceful Gathering on my recent trip to Chicago helped me choose which colors those would be when I found a fat quarter bundle of blues and browns.  The shop specializes in reproduction fabrics. Only one of the fabrics in this block (the dark brown ombre stripe) came from the group, so it's obvious I had plenty of material to pick from.