I have been participating in a Civil War quilt along with a group of 11 other lady's we are all making a quilt from the book Civil War Legacies by Carol Hopkins (Publisher Martingale and Company The Patchwork Place) It is a great book and this is what I would like to talk about today.
I have not created many quilts from patterns though I have now 3-4 quilt books in my possession. The real reason I have not created many is because my skills are still on the low end, but most the books I get are harder to do then I would like. My first thing I would like to say about this book is that the descriptions, and instructions are great. They are easy to follow and easy to use. The quilt I was assigned to create was Grandpap's Cards. When I first looked though this book I was thinking these quilts were much larger then they are. (you can make them bigger and I think I am going to make a few others in sizes that are larger). My quilt had a bunch of HST that when completed was 1 inch view able. I have big hands which made this hard to do. But after completing the quilt I have to say totally worth the effort.
This is a picture of the first block I made. As you can see it is any thing but square. I was not accustomed to making things so small where small variances are a issue. But one thing I am is a man and men don't unpick and they don't go back (Or at least that's what I believe we should do haha). My wife has made me unpick from time to time,but I shy away from it. My quilt consisted of 20 of these small 4 inch blocks. Alternated with 4 inch dark blocks.
Here is a picture of the center of the quilt shortly after I sewed it together. You can see on the bottom left the squares that need to be cut off. The directions said to cut HST and sew in and not have to cut off but because of my nature to be off just a tad I opted to do full squares so that I could more easily cut the side straight.
Here I have the middle and the 2 borders and its basted ready to quilt. I made only 1 mistake that I regret, but could have been fixed if I was not so anti picking. You can see that 2 of my blocks (I had 20 blocks 2 of each of 10 colors) ended up side by side in my quilt. Oh well. When I was piecing these together each of my family members came into the room and said oh neat as they picked up the rows I was sewing together and looked at them and then sat them down. Any way the pattern I was going for totally got blown out of the water. All in all though it worked out wonderful.
Now for another pat on the back for the book. One thing I liked is how it suggested ways to alter and add some interest to the quilt and one of those was to do some differences on the borders. I like when patterns show where or how to make easy changes to add some spice. I want to say I am new to quilting and that I have just always used whatever fabric fit's my fancy. This is the first time that I have made something with a specific type of fabric. This quilt was made with Civil War replica materials. I have enjoyed it. My son made the comment when washing my quilt that it is his favorite so far color wise. That is a huge compliment coming from him. He is an artist in his own right and much better at picking colors then my wife or I.
Any way the quilt is done its not huge but it is wonderful. I was going to wait to take some outside pictures but I have not had time while it was light outside and it needs to be posted so here it is.
you can see the oops in the 2 side by side the same in this shot above.
And last but not least Julia in her Sunday dress (yes it was finished last Sunday) complete with her bib on so she would not spit up on her cute dress. What do you think a tad small for a baby blanket but just right for a wall hanging.
Oh wait a blurry picture of the back too
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