150 Canadian women
The other morning I decided to spread out my Canadian Women blocks just to see how they were coming along and fortunately, I had the foresight to quickly grab the camera. Although the photos above don’t include all of the blocks I’ve made so far, I truly have managed to keep up with the fairly easy three per week schedule and all blocks are complete. The reason you don’t see every one is, in my excitement to see this quilt come together, I made my final decision on how to set the blocks and have begun piecing some together. I want to keep it a surprise for now and so those blocks weren’t included in the photograph session.
I’ve been using a wide variety of red and cream fabrics from my stash to make the little six inch blocks, with the majority from various French General lines. I suppose I just like the warmer, almost rusty orange tones of those reds, rather than cool blue reds, and these also seem to require a warmer, creamier neutral paired with them, rather than a cool white. I found that I really don’t purchase a lot of red but I’m determined to only use stash for this project and if that means running out of certain fabrics, then so be it. I was lucky enough to find a small selection of red yardage in my stash that will work for my setting concept and so, I’ve begun to make as much sashing as possible with that until it runs out. This will determine the final size of the quilt and how many blocks I will eventually create – so basically, I’m just flying by the seat of my pants, as usual.
I really enjoy learning more about the remarkable, but sometimes forgotten, Canadian women that have contributed to the history of our great nation and I have found myself doing further research on some that are especially intriguing, as the essays, although informative, are often quite brief. If you haven’t heard of this free quilt block project yet, just google 150 Canadian Women or check out the Next Step Quilt Designs website. What a fantastic way to commemorate, document, and celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday!
As always, carol
Great blocks! You have a lot of variety of red fabrics! Red is a colour I don`t normally gravitate towards either, so it would be tricky to come up with very much going on stash alone. Maybe you should think of entering it in the Heritage Park FOQ…..just a thought!!!! 😉
Aww, gee, thanks for the nice comments, Tammy. If it wasn’t for a little bundle of red French General fat quarters I would have been out shopping. Oh, and I also had a charm pack that I picked through as well. As for Heritage Park’s Festival of Quilts, I’m not sure all the blocks will even be released by then, but if I grow too impatient to finish I might have to come up with my own blocks… it’s been known to happen. I worked on piecing rows together yesterday and I will only need 100 blocks to make a 90″ square quilt. I’ll keep you posted :o)