25 Calico Puzzle

Calico Puzzle by Becky Brown We can recall the effectiveness of the Union blockade on Southern lives with Calico Puzzle. "What will the pople do?" In June of 1861, Clara Solomon began keeping a diary. Sixteen-year-old girls often confide their thoughts, dreams and disappointments to diaries. Clara, one of six daughters of a New Orleans dry goods merchant, also recorded her reactions to the Yankee occupation of the city, her father's absence in the Confederate Army, shortages, and her family's increasing poverty in the War's first two years. She wrote in the slang of her day, revealing that teenagers 150 years ago had their own language, some of which lingers. Her friend Alice "looked particularly 'jimmy' in a clean muslin."  "Alice, I often think of you. Aint' that cool?"

Some of her words were probably Southern regionalisms rather than teenage slang. She called a baked potato dish a "potato pone."

 By fall she was complaining about the price of cotton. 

 "Former bit calicoes are now 20 and 25 cents...What will the people do?"

Mid-19th-century Americans used

Spanish coins like this "bit" as currency.

Twenty-five cents is two-bits, so the price of prints had doubled. Like most teenagers, she found "pretty dresses" a major concern:

 

"Remained sewing until 2 ½ when I proceeded to adorn my person. Wore my new dress with which I am in love."

"After School I came directly home. Ma was down stairs sewing....F. came.... The pretty ladies [she] had seen had made her quite envious particularly of their toilettes & she cautioned me not to go on Canal St. for I would see too much grand dressing for my own comfort. Innocent child! How often have I returned home almost downhearted at the remembrance of the pretty dresses & faces I had seen."

Calico Puzzle (BlockBase # 1681) was given that name in the Kansas City Star in 1930.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

These measurements will give you pieces a bit large which you can then trim to an 8-1/2" square (8" finished) block.

A Cut 2 medium and 2 light squares 3-5/8". Cut each in half diagonally.

You need 4 triangles of each.

B Cut 4 dark and 1 light square 3-3/8"

Clara's diary was recently published as The Civil War Diary of Clara Solomon: Growing up in New Orleans, 1861-1862, edited by Elliott Ashkenazi (Louisiana State University Press, 1995). Read excerpts from the book by clicking on this webpage and scrolling to the bottom of the page:
http://dragoon1st.tripod.com/cw/files/look_solomon.html

New Orleans became a Union-occupied city for most of the War.

3 Seven Sisters

Seven Sisters

150 years ago this week Mississippi seceded from the Union, the second state to do so after South Carolina. Within weeks Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas followed. These seven rebellious states voted to form a Confederacy, selecting a flag in March, 1861 that symbolized the "Seven Sisters" in the field, a flag reflected on the cover of my book Civil War Women.

One version of the first flag

 
When the Civil War began in 1861 Sarah Morgan was a well-to-do 19-year-old living in Baton Rouge, the capitol of Louisiana. She had a lively family centered in a row of substantial houses on Church Street (now Fourth). Six slaves, recorded in the 1860 census, waited on the Morgan family. In her diary, Sarah recorded the events that ripped up her comfortable life.

A year after the War began New Orleans was under Union control and Union ships were on the Mississippi River near Sarah's house preparing to take over the state capitol. She wrote about the first day of Union occupation.

"Early in the evening, four more gunboats sailed up here. We saw them from the corner….The American flag was flying from every peak. It was received in profound silence, by the hundreds gathered on the banks. I could hardly refrain from a groan. Much as I once loved that flag, I hate it now! I came back and made myself a Confederate flag about five inches long, slipped the staff in my belt, pinned the flag to my shoulder, and walked downtown, to the consternation of women and children, who expected something awful to follow....Nettie made one and hid it in the folds of her dress. But we were the only two who ventured."

A rebel flaunting an apron based on the first
Confederate flag attracts attention from Union occupiers.

Use this photo for a pattern.

Print it so it's about 8" wide.

This week's block is based on the first Confederate flag, drawn from a quilt made in 1861 by Mrs. Green McPhearson of of Arkansas. Click on the link to see our inspiration, the Secession Quilt in the collection of the Historic Arkansas Museum. http://www.historicarkansas.org/collections/quilts.aspx?id=70

Click on the block picture above. Print it so it's about 8" wide to use for a pattern. Choose one star for a template, add a scant 1/4" seam allowance, cut seven and prepare the stars using your favorite applique method. Applique in a circular pattern to an 8-1/2" square background fabric.
Click here for a PDF version of the black and white photo. http://www.barbarabrackman.com/7sisters.pdf

NEW LINK (as of 9/1/2011)
https://acrobat.com/#d=eACZPlbfgh0Oi79wTQpr2Q

Late in the nineteenth century a pieced design called Seven Sisters, among other names, was popular.

If you'd rather do a pieced version---Sandy Klop at American Jane offers a pattern for the quilt above.

http://americanjane.com/patterns.php

Scroll way down almost to the bottom of that page to her pattern Seven Sisters.

Read an online version of Sarah Morgan's diary, first published in 1913 as A Confederate Girl's Diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson, at either of these websites:

Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/25004

Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=yrUcAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=sarah+morgan+dawson&lr=&as_brr=1

As more states seceded the Confederacy added stars

 to the flag, but soon redesigned it 

because it was hard to distinguish from the Union banner.

This week's story is drawn from a 2009 block-of-the-month I did called Dixie Diary. It's out of print. You can find a 19" pattern for the appliqued Seven Sisters in my book Civil War Women. Click here for a preview and ordering information for a bound copy (printed on demand) or a digital version.

http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1857