Hello, good afternoon! It's a grey and windy day here at the beach. Now, in mid-November, there is suddenly a nip in the air. I am sipping my hot Earl Grey tea with my snack of a ''golden something '' apple and a sliver of Vermont cheddar goat cheese.The tea's fragrant steam mixes with the sweet scent of my London Candle. It too is flavored with bergamot and and black tea. The brown bowl in front of me is filled with cinnamon sticks and pine cones, a hint of the holidays to come.
Saturday it was 65*, today 30s-ish.
Mo had to wear his sweater.
I worked on etsy listings all day. It's a tedious task that takes time away from my sewing on my quilt projects. [Even after all these years of selling on etsy, its categories and info are a mystery to me. And one is often lost in the search engine's crowd.]
I haven't touched P2 in weeks. I know I am very behind, too bad. And this week the November Westering Women block will be posted. Ten blocks done and two to go. I did catch up on this project, making both September and October blocks this past week.
Here is September: Sage Buds.
I must say the train ladies must have had a lot of time on their hands, if indeed they sewed such complex blocks. Look at all these set in seams, lah di dah. I bet the wagon train women were thrilled if they got a simple nine-patch together.*
The stop on our wagon train is Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming. The diaries of the time mention the lovely scent and color of the sagebrush there. And yet---Wyoming?---seems to me the pioneers better get moving, they have a long ways to go yet.
The block represents the blue or purple sage flowers that bloom on the brush out west. I sat on the deck and sewed, and in my head I kept hearing,"Roll on, lonesome cowboy! Rose of Cimarron. Dusty days are gone now, Rose of Cimarron." Yes I too think Cimarron is in Texas, and the band was Poco, not New Riders of the Purple Sage. Music blips heard decades ago, long forgotten, that come into one's head are so weird, aren't they.
Here is the October block. The train has left Fort Laramie and is facing the Rocky Mountains ahead. This block is called Rocky Mountain Chain.
If our wagon train takes what was called the Southern Route, it seems it will be an easy trip over the Rockies. Something I didn't know. Makes me wonder why folks struggled through the Donner pass over the northern Rockies instead. Out train will travel over the Continental Divide, on to the Promised Land!
I sure wish I had more of the robin's egg blue seaweed print, it's a Shelbourne Museum repro. I had a tiny roll, not even a fat eighth, from the Cape Cod quilt shop.
By this time I was ready to see how the blocks look laid out. Ugh. I was going for scrappy, not mish-mash.
Here they are laid out on an antique quilt that has very wide cheddar sashing. I don't want to use cheddar but I can see why so many traditional quilters used it. Its happy brightness somehow unifies all.
I had originally intended to have 3 or 4 '' blue sashing with red cornerstone stars.
Somehow on the journey I forgot that idea and stupidly used blue patches in my block corners quite often. I am thinking a tan calico [not this coral double pink!] and red stars with a narrow blue border, right now.
And inaccurate as heck but I gotta have this wagon train print for the backing....
I hope you have a fun Thanksgiving week, and can spend the holiday with family and friends. If only in your imaginations.
(Remembering long ago and far away, good times.)
love
lizzy
gone to the beach.....
Westering Women is a SAL on Barbara Brackman's blog, see link in side bar. *Brackman does NOT say the blocks are necessarily block patterns that date from the mid-1800s. The blocks are chosen to represent the stops along the wagon train route, and may be anachronistic. At least that is my read on the project, and not Brackman's own words.*
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