Not, of course!, that this block took me only one day to make. :) Couple of months, I think. However, it is finished, at long last, and I am happy with it.
I am making _some_ of the blocks from the Civil War Bride quilt using wool applique onto a quilt-weight cotton background, with a fair bit of hand stitchery on the edges and such. Here is a close up, maybe you can see some of the stitching better?
Tonight my friend Barbara is coming to sew with me (our regular Thursday night treat:) and I've already pulled out the patterns to decide on what block to make next - I am planning to put the putative 'groom' in my second block, just have to decide which block to put him into. :)
For those of you who don't know about this quilt, it is loosely based on an Baltimore style applique made in the middle of the 19th century and donated to the American Folk Art Museum - they call the original quilt the Bird of Paradise. You can see the original one here.
I'm working from the patterns sold by Threadbear out of Australia - she rearranged the blocks, resized them and designed a new border from the original quilt - called The Civil War Bride (when the Bird of Paradise was donated to the museum, it came with an assortment of papers which included the templates for the bride and a male 'groom' figure).
Now, I love the story with this quilt and really like the blocks - most of which have birds or animals in them (including peacocks, elephants and emus along with the iconic bird of paradise:). I want to make a small five block wall hanging, not the 'whole enchilada' as they say - that much hand-turned applique would take me the rest of this life AND the next. LOL! Which is why I'm doing wool applique, btw. :)
Things are awfully quiet here at the store, foot traffic wise ... but we have some lovely fabrics looking for good homes. Too bad _my_ home is so full. :) I've been jumping about from project to project this week - I actually took TWO days off (Tuesday and Wednesday) and managed to more than just sleep for a change. :)
I'm knitting a penguin for my great-nephew, Hunter ... slowly, on tiny (for me) needles ... and enjoying making that while I watch videos on my computer. I watched all three parts of a film called Archangel with Daniel Craig in it on Wednesday. I quite enjoyed the story (well enough that I'm going to look for the original book) but it was a very scary premise.
I'm also trying to finish knitting a gift for my husband's niece's soon-to-be-first-born ... and embroider other things. Can't focus on just one project right now - which is why it takes me so long to get any one thing finished!
:) Linda
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