Sentimental Stitches

In spite of some nasty computer troubles I thought I would post the February blocks for The 1857 Album Quilt tonight and avoid the craziness of Monday morning. I'm working on an old laptop pieced together to get me through for a few days until I can get something new. I've never had one just stop working.

I've had them get slow, too small or worn out but never completely stop with all my treasured information inside. Not to worry, everything gets backed up twice a day automatically which is something everyone should think about setting up. It's not expensive and you never have to worry about losing all the digital patterns we download and save.

Thankfully I had a pretty good start on this month's patterns and only had to install a few programs to get things finished. I'm excited about these blocks and can't tell you how much fun it was to trace them off the quilt. You'll notice I added little hash marks to indicate the center of the square going in both directions. I hope it'll make it easier to center the blocks on your background fabric.

Block 4

Isn't this a pretty block? It'll give you a chance to try something a little different. Look closely at the next picture.
Do you see the white basting stitches around the scalloped edge of the cheddar fabric? That's right, the scalloped edges of both the cheddar and red on the flower were raw edge appliqued using a single strand of thread and tiny buttonhole stitches.

The signature on this block is inked and reads - Eliza DeClarke. My research hasn't found Eliza in Wisconsin or New York or anywhere else in the United States. I've tried everything I can think of. I've gone back in the family trees for both Laura and her husband Alfred but no luck there. I made a list of all the names on the quilt and there are three DeClarkes, John, Mary and Eliza. I can't find anything on any of them so I must be doing something wrong. I even tried looking for the name as De Clarke but that didn't bring up anything either.
Fiona's comment on my last post prompted me to order a copy of Laura's death certificate to see what caused her life to end at such a young age. It takes 4-6 weeks for that to get here but I'll share it as soon as it arrives. Laura and her husband were living in Manhattan at the time of her death. He was a book publisher and I have a feeling they lived quite a comfortable life. Laura had her own will that passed through probate court and not too long after her death her husband applied for a passport to travel abroad. I'm going to see if I can locate a copy of her will to give us a little more insight into her life and contact a great, great, great niece I located to see if she can share any stories about the family.

Block 5

The block was made by "MD" so there's no research to be done here. This is a great block to practice your circle making technique.

I'm sure "MD" didn't have any of the fancy tools we have today to make her circle shapes so I went to my coin purse and a quarter matched the size of the pieces. If you look at the block closely you'll see they don't fit perfectly together and some are overlapped. I wonder if she used a saucer or bowl to mark a placement guide on her block. The pattern matches the original block but you could spread them out a bit so they are edge to edge in a circle and still have plenty of room on the block.

Block 6

This block was made by "Aunty". Isn't it cute? I can't wait to work on this one with all the different fabrics. The red and green prints look like reproduction fabrics I've seen in quilt shops.



Pull out your best prints for this one and enjoy the easy, graceful curves of the flower.

This block was made by "PJV". There are quite a few blocks with hearts and I wanted to include at least one this month.
Check out this fabric. Not your usual piece of quilting cotton. I really like the texture it adds to the block.
Did you notice the missing fabric in the center of the block? Were these melons stitched using a fancy fabric that deteriorated with age? In the Beyond The Cherry Trees quilt the only fabric that turned the same dark color and fell apart was a purple used to applique grapes. Based on that, I think I'm going to use a purple mourning print for my melon shapes.

I almost forgot! Our 20th Anniversary Prize for February is this pretty antique scissors and tape measure set. Just leave a comment on this post and on February 20th I'll draw for the winner. Good luck everyone!

That's our 4 blocks for this month. The time to sign up for printed patterns and applique fabrics is over. They'll be going out this week. I'll be back in a few days with more information on the quilt and don't forget to stop by on Tuesday's to see if another Tuesday Treasure has been posted.