civil war diary quilt: 15, 35, 71

After much anticipation, my Civil War Diary Quilt book has arrived. Right now I’m staring at a block called “Abomination of Desolation.” The names are just fantastic, aren’t they? This block is just a 16-patch with a diagonal pattern.

As I flip through this book, not only am I attacking the paper-piecing-puzzle of figuring out how to assemble the blocks, I’m also trying to identify the different color schemes. It’s like a test after reading Jeni’s posts. I’m hoping to use as many different color combinations as I can from the Robert Kaufmann Pure Organic collection. Another inspiration for the color schemes has been afghans like this. Lots of color and blocks of different color combinations, all against black.

15. draft threat

These blocks come together pretty quickly, because they’re only 6″ square. Also, I haven’t tried any of the really intricate ones yet.

71. the longest morning

On a difficulty scale of 1-5, with 1 being easy and 5 being hard, I’d probably rank these somewhere around a 2. There are definitely easier blocks in the book — and there are most definitely some more difficult ones.

35. mail delivery

I knew that if I knocked all the easy ones out first I would lose momentum, so I’m trying to mix it up. I made each of these three different afternoons before going to work.

the civil war diary quilt

I’d been planning on a new quilt using just solids, which I’ve been wanting to do since about a year ago, when I made this quilt for my brother.

I’d been wanting to do an all organic quilt for a while, too. I’ve noticed a lot of fabric designers who just do organics: Daisy Janie, Monaluna, Birch, Cloud9, just to name a few. Beautiful designs, but nothing grabbed me.

So when I decided to buy a bundle of solid fabrics, and I stumbled upon the Robert Kaufman Pure Organic bundle, I was sold.

Materials aside, the impetus to pursue the project itself came from reading Heather’s post about the Civil War Diary Quilt book. Heather wrote:

“I instantly fell in love with the stories of the women living during the Civil War and the quilt blocks they inspired. They tend to be more gritty, edgy, and more masculine looking in nature than the Farmer’s Wife blocks.”

I started reading more about the book, and I was taken by the block names: Alarming Conditions, Anxieties, Dark Gloom, Texas Rangers, News, Sad and Lonely Days, Grammar Class, Beginning of War, Misleading Dispatch, Degradation, Guerrilla Warfare, More Pigs.