1 Catch Me If You Can

Nearly 150 years after emancipation, we still delight in hearing tales of a slave's escape. This lively block stitched of only one triangular pattern piece captures the cleverness the adventure required. In her 1935 book The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt, Carrie Hall gave the name "Catch Me If You Can" to an old design with many other names including "Winding Blades", "Devil's Puzzle" and "Flyfoot."

Escape was often an impulse move. When opportunity knocked, a slave might slip through the door. Eliza Potter told the story of a young woman, a slave in Kentucky, who accompanied her mistress across the river to Cincinnati in the free state of Ohio:

"She was sent out one morning to make purchases and never returned, but found a happy home, I trust, on English soil."

Although we enjoy imagining good's triumph over evil, successful escapes were far too few. Most ended in failure for the simple reason stated by slaveholder William Dunbar in 1780:

"Ketty came home this morning of herself, finding it uncomfortable lodging in the woods."

Ketty must have weighed her options during the night and decided that hunger, cold and no real escape plan were worse than the expected whipping.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this first week's block was a code or form of communication on the Underground Railroad. The block was given the name in 1935 and Carrie Hall did not mention slavery or the Civil War at all in her description.

We are using a traditional block and a fanciful name to commemorate the Underground Railroad and escape from slavery. These symbolic patterns will have a label each week, as will reproduction patterns that actually existed during the Civil War.

Stitching the Block                              8" Finished Block

Rotary Cutting

Cut squares 2-7/8":  6 light, 6 medium and 4 dark

Cut each on the diagonal to make 12 light, 12 medium and 12 dark triangles [oops! that's 8 dark triangles]

Piece the triangles into squares, following the shading in the block photo

This story is taken from my 2006 book Facts and Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery. See page 68 for a 15" pattern. Click here for more information about the book:
http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1049
You can buy it as a bound book or a digital book.

Read Eliza Potter's 1859 memoir of her life as a free black woman before the Civil War at Google Books.

A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life

Click here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ksYEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=eliza+potter+hairdresser&source=bl&ots=-_yxJAyFuU&sig=FDg_CaF_X6FX0JuAWSgW-XhauiA&hl=en&ei=b7P_TLDFIIT7lwffwfihCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false