32 Carolina Lily

Note from BB. There is something wrong with the program Blogger this summer. No matter how many times I rearrange the paragraphs in this post to make a coherent narrative the program rearranges them in random order. Sorry for the strange order. Scroll around to get the measurements you need.

Carolina Lily

By Becky Brown

Early in the War the women of the South, like the women of the North, organized Soldiers' Aid Societies. Emma Holmes of Charleston, South Carolina recalled a large meeting in late July of 1861.

"This afternoon the Ladies Charleston Volunteer Aid Society held a meeting at the S.C. Hall.  192 ladies were there and nearly $1000 collected from subscriptions and donations...12 Managers [will] cut out the work and distribute it. The ladies all seemed to enjoy seeing their friends as well as the purpose for which they came."

 

John P Marszalek has edited The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes 1861-1866. See more about it at LSU Press.

http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-diary-of-miss-emma-holmes-1861-1866/

Although the picture on the cover shows an older woman, Emma was in her twenties during the war, a young and passionate Secesh.

Emma's Charleston house (the three-story building with a three-story piazza) survived the fire and the War. It was demolished about 1920. This picture from the Library of Congress was taken twenty years at the turn of the 20th century. The piazzas (stacked, covered porches) are a characteristic of Charleston's architecture.

Emma reported on the various meetings she attended. In August the Ladies Society for Clothing the Troops in Active Service reported:

"2301 flannel shirts and drawers have been completed, two or three companies going on have been supplied, and the rest sent to the quarter-master."

 In October friends visited to make socks and slippers. 

"Out of the eleven ladies gathered, eight were knitting stockings, & grandmother showed us a pair of slippers sent her from London just after she was married, when it was the fashion for the ladies to make their own for drawing room wear."

Emma Holmes was 23 in 1861, one of 11 children of widowed Eliza Holmes. The family lived in Charleston on the income of a leased plantation until the end of 1861 when an enormous fire burned the city. They moved to Camden where she continued her diary throughout the War.

BlockBase has several patterns named after South Carolina and Charleston with which we could recall the Ladies' Charleston Volunteer Aid Society, but today's quilters think first of the Carolina Lily, a design that would be a challenge at 8".

The pattern for this week echoes the usual triple Carolina Lily. We can think of it as one bloom in a vase.

It's a variation of BlockBase #732, published in the Ladies Home Journal in 1909 as Flower Pot. The flowers in the quilt pattern are traditionally red, pink or yellow, but it's gold here to symbolize the botanical Carolina Lily (Lilium michauxii) a wild flower that grows throughout the Carolinas.

 In the west we call these spotted wildflowers Tiger Lilies.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

A - Cut 2 light strips 6-1/8" x 2-7/8"

B - Cut 1 light square 4-1/2". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts. You need 2 light triangles.

C - Cut 1 light square 2-7/8".

D - Cut 1 dark and 1 light square 3-1/8". Cut each in half with a diagonal cut. You need 1 dark and 1 light triangle.

E - Cut diamonds from strips cut 2-1/4" x 5-3/8". Trim 45 degree angles. Or use the template on the PDF. Click here:

http://www.barbarabrackman.com/32CarolinaLily.pdf

The diamond is supposed to finish to 2-3/8" on all four sides.

With seam allowances the side is 3-1/8" long

You need 2 gold and 2 light green diamonds. 

F - Cut 1 dark square 4-1/8". Cut in half with a diagonal cut. You need 1 dark triangle.