Atlanta Garden: 2023 Pieced Block of the Month

 

Time to start thinking about next year's Block-of-the-Month pattern for piecers. The last block for this year's American Stars was posted on December 14th, 2022. American Stars was rather challenging. Next year's Atlanta Garden will be simpler, based on nine patch blocks with narrow center strips. Look for monthly patterns on the second Wednesday of each month,

Jeanne Arnieri's setting blocks

The "official set" alternates a simple nine patch with 12 related blocks

The first pattern will be published here on January 11, 2023.

We began working on the quilt last summer when Russia invaded Ukraine and we were all horrified to hear of the bombing of civilian targets. How do people live under such terror? I thought about Londoners in the Blitz and then Atlantans during the Civil War.

I found a diary in the digital files of the Atlanta Historical Society kept by Carrie Mabry Berry (1854-1921), daughter of a well-to-do builder in a growing city. By the time she was seven the Civil War had commenced. When Sherman's siege of Atlanta began in 1864 she was ten and her father bought her a diary.

Her first entry:

"The shells we dread. One has busted under the dining room." 

An Atlanta garden during the war with a "bomb-proof" cave to protect the family from shelling.

We'll follow her and her family---full of mysterious spies---and see how people adapt. Atlantans soon learned to listen to the shells, gauge what kind they were (timed to explode after landing or exploding on impact) and venture out until an ominous sound sent them back to the "bomb proof."  

Here's the pattern for the alternate block. Each month's pattern, mostly rotary cut, comes in two sizes.
10" blocks in the official set will give your a 50" square field of patchwork.
15" blocks = 60"

All the monthly blocks will have the same size strips and square in the middle. Corners will vary, but not be too difficult. Our teenage model maker Addie has created a lovely quilt in these aqua colors. You might want to enlist a young stitcher in the project.

More fabric ideas from the model makers:

Becky Collis went through her stash of reproduction prints

and found reds and blues to contrast with browns and a swirly cream

background.

Jeanne is doing two sets.

Becky Brown is tracking far afield.

Denniele is using all solids and one print.

Dorry Emmer

You'll need 13 of these setting blocks in addition to the 12 monthly patterns.

Electric Quilt 8 estimates of yardage

Atlanta

Here's our public Facebook group

AtlantaGardenQuiltBOM

https://www.facebook.com/groups/536276161894534

You can buy the pattern package with rotary instructions for Atlanta Garden's 12 blocks in my Etsy Shop:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1359418637/atlanta-garden-12-pieced-beginner-blocks

We'll do an applique BOM next year too. Starting in March, 2023.

More later.