January Minis

I've had my "Calorie-Free Chocolates" quilt on the dining room display hanger since the holidays.   Looking at those chocolate Nine Patch and Snowball blocks every day inspired me to try some mini snowballs and nine patches this month.

I had just enough chocolate fabric scraps and some chocolate-y brown fabric to make two six-inch mug rugs.  I used Barb Vedder's Nine Patch tutorial to make two sets of Nine Patch blocks.  

I even had some chocolate-dipped strawberry fabric scraps to use for the backs.  

I had designs on making at least one additional Snowball-themed project, but got distracted by other ideas!

 

For example, as I was digging through the drawers looking for French General fabrics, I came across a group of scraps I had saved in a plastic bag.  

The leftovers were from a fabric collection called "Alice's Washday Blues" by Blue Hill Fabrics.  I had used the collection to make blocks for Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice BOW.  

I kept all the scraps together in hopes of using them up in another project, but forgot about them until discovering them earlier this month.  Thinking about Janet's "baggie challenge", I decided it was time to put those scraps to work!

I had a new-to-me 3.5 inch tumbler die for the Accuquilt cutter, and I decided tumbler blocks would be a great scrap-buster.  I thought the Alice scraps might be a little bland on their own, so I found a hunk of red to spice things up a little.  Since my goal was to use up as many scraps as possible, I just kept adding blocks until I ran out of tumblers.

 

A different red fabric for the binding...and I used a single binding this time.  I don't know why I never tried single binding before, but it works great, especially if you follow another of Barb's tutorials. 

A final row of tumblers on the back, two slices of backing left from a previous project, and outline quilting finish the project.

 

 I wasn't going to add a label, but inspiration struck today and I had a name: Alice's Last Washday.  I also found this sliced piece of selvedge, so I'm trying to come up with a way to incorporate it into the label.

And so goes my monthly mini tale!  Many thanks to Wendy (The Constant Quilter) for encouraging mini madness for another year!

Finely Finished: Grandmother's Choice

As July wound to a close, I put the finishing stitches in a quilt that has taken eight years to reach completed status.  On the other hand, the subject of the quilt - women's suffrage - took an equally long time to come to fruition in the United States!

Grandmother's Choice was a block of the week project created by Barbara Brackman to recognize the years-long struggle for women to win the right to vote.  The BOW started well before the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment (June 4th, 1919) to illustrate the time and effort involved in passing that simple amendment:  

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Most of the fabrics used in my blocks were from a collection called "Alice's Washday Blues" by Blue Hill Fabrics.  I wound up adding lots of other fabrics, but Alice was my inspiration.

I wasn't gung-ho on sampler quilts when I started the BOW, but I learned to appreciate the fun of making just one block of a particular pattern.

I finely (finally) finished the quilt by using simple sashing and two borders - narrow and wide.  

The long-arm quilting was done by Diane Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting.

Finished size:  84 inches by 84 inches.

The label features one of my favorite prints from Alice's Washday Blues.  

The label also includes the date the 19th Amendment was ratified by enough states to become law:  

18 August 1920.  I guess I finished my quilt just in time!

As you may recall from civics class, Constitutional amendments require approval by 2/3 of the states in order to become law.  In 1920, Tennessee was the approving state that put the 19th Amendment over the threshold.  Interestingly, my state, Louisiana, rejected the amendment in 1920 and did not (belatedly) pass it until 1970!  If you're curious about when your state approved the 19th amendment, you can find out at this National Park Service website.

Nudging Grandmother Along

It's been one of those weeks where family and work take a higher priority than usual and little sewing is accomplished.  Even though Fabric Therapy is oh-so-important, sometimes it just has to wait!

I did finish 3 more blocks in the Grandmother's Choice BOW.  These blocks (24-26) were straightforward and fairly easy to assemble.  I tried to incorporate some of the lesser-used fabrics from the stash I had assembled for this project, which started with Alice's Washday Blues as a foundation.  I wish I could find some more multi-color, largish prints featuring the colors of red, blue and brown I've chosen.   There doesn't seem to be much out there that's not dainty prints, or the blues are more of a teal than the indigo-type blue I'm using.  I'm not running low on fabric, but it would be nice to have some more choices to work into the project!