Grandmothers Choice Fabric

It has been a long weekend of running errands, taking care of puppies and trying to avoid getting soaked in frequent downpours.  On the plus side, I got new running shoes (for walking!), had a great dinner with my DH and sons and got lots of puppy kisses (my son is in town with his puppy, who is McKenzie's littermate).  Very little sewing time, but that's OK!

I have been contemplating my fabric choices for the Grandmother's Choice Quilt Block of the Week project that starts September 1st.  Although I love the thought of using William Morris-inspired fabrics, I don't currently have any in my stash, and Barbara Brackman's new collection won't be available until later this fall.  I didn't know if the LQS would have any Morris-type fabric, so I was definitely considering other options.  Then I remembered a fat quarter collection I had purchased earlier this year that just might fill the bill.

Alice's Washday Blues by Blue Hill Fabrics features blues, tans and creams accented with red.  Go check out the fabrics on the Blue Hill website - their photos do more justice to the collection than mine!

I think these fabrics are classic enough to have been found in almost any woman's scrap collection at the time American women won the right to vote.  I might need to add some fabrics with red background to give a little punch, but it will be easier to judge once Barbara starts publishing the block patterns.  And in case I start to run out of fabric before the project ends, I'm sure it will be fairly easy to find other appropriate fabrics in these colors - or even locate some additional Washday fabric using the magic of the internet!

Grandmothers Choice: Getting Ready!

Quilt history maven Barbara Brackman is planning another weekly quilt history blog featuring the fight for women's voting rights.  Each week a new quilt block will be posted, with historical notes on the block and the campaign for women's voting rights, as well as instructions for completing the block.  Called Grandmothers Choice, the quilt block entries will begin on September 1.

Barbara thoughtfully posted an entry this week to help quilters decide on a color scheme for their women's suffrage blocks.  All of her ideas are inspiring, and I'm having a hard time deciding on what colors I'd like to use for my blocks.  

I love the idea of purple, green and white - colors chosen by the English suffrage group Women's Social and Political Union.  

19th Amendment Victory Flag

The Americans chose gold with purple accents for their colors.  Apparently the fabric color we call cheddar would be in keeping with the gold color used at the time and the idea of a cheddar-themed quilt is also tempting!  

Another English suffrage group, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, chose red and white for their symbolic colors.  Red and white quilt?  Yes, please!

Barbara also notes that using William Morris-inspired fabrics would be historically correct.  She has created several Morris lines for Moda; the illustration above is from the upcoming line The Morris Apprentice.  This line is not available for purchase yet, but it probably wouldn't be hard to find Morris-type fabrics from previous Moda lines.

Interesting factoids learned while researching this entry:  Tennessee was the deciding state to ratify the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920.  Even though the law of the land, many states did not ratify the amendment until years later; Louisiana did not ratify until June 11, 1970!  Check out this 19th Amendment Timeline for your state's decision (scroll down).

The title of the new blog, Grandmothers Choice, also got me thinking about my own grandmothers and their participation in the women's voting movement.  My grandmothers were 11 and 13 years old when the 19th Amendment was ratified, so they didn't get to participate in voting in that historic 1920 election.  By the time they were old enough to vote, women's voting rights must have been much less novel.  I wonder what their memories of the whole process might have been?

Are you planning to participate in the Grandmother's Choice weekly block party?  Have you decided on a color scheme?  Were you surprised to see when your state ratified the 19th Amendment?