A Finished Quilt For the Book

Civil War Saturday Surprise, 90 x 100",

by Rosemary Youngs, machine quilted by Tammy Finkler, 2011

Rosemary has posted about her finished quilt with all the blocks.
Click here to read it:
http://rosemaryyoungs.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/a-years-worth-of-civil-war-blocks-thank-you-barbara-brackman/

 I sent her the final blocks a few weeks early so she could get it quilted and ship it to C&T Publishing as we are planning to do a book on the blog and this will be one of the finished samples.

I love the way she makes each block an individual composition. Each has a personality but they go together well. It's a talent that has helped make her Civil War Love Letter and Civil War Diary books so popular.

My deadline for the finished manuscript for the book is January 3rd 2012---so you can see we are in a bit of a rush to get quilts finished. The book will be out in about a year. (Seems like a very long time from now.)

I am so grateful to her for finishing this for the book, despite the fact that she is working on books of her own.

I'll keep this blog up for at least half of next year so when you get your quilts finished send me pictures or post them on the Flickr page and I'll post them here.

She's very nice on her post in thanking me for all this work---but it really isn't work to me. I love to tell the stories and it gives me an excuse to read more---plus you guys did all the sewing.

50 Grapes of Wrath

Grapes of Wrath is a modification of a traditional pattern called Grape Basket. The block can remind us of a new version of the "John Brown Song," written in late fall, 1861.

Julia Ward Howe's biography tells the story of how she came to write the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on a visit to Washington City.

"Returning from a review of troops ..., her carriage was surrounded and delayed by the marching regiments: she and her companions sang, to beguile the tedium of the way, the war songs which everyone was singing in those days; among them – 'John Brown's body lies a-moulding in the grave. His soul is marching on!'

The soldiers liked this, cried, 'Good for you!' and took up the chorus with its rhythmic swing. 'Mrs. Howe,' said [a friend] 'Why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?'
'I have often wished to do so!' she replied.
Waking in the gray of the next morning, as she lay waiting for the dawn, the word came to her.

'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord – '

She lay perfectly still. Line by line, stanza by stanza, the words came sweeping on with the rhythm of marching feet, pauseless, resistless. She saw the long lines swinging into place before her eyes, heard the voice of the nation speaking through her lips. She waited till the voice was silent, till the last line was ended; then sprang from bed, and groping for pen and paper, scrawled in the gray twilight the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.'

The first draft, pictured in her biography.

She was used to writing thus; verses often came to her at night, and must be scribbled in the dark for fear of waking the baby; she crept back to bed, and as she fell asleep she said to herself, 'I like this better than most things I have written.' In the morning, while recalling the incident, she found she had forgotten the words.

The poem was published in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1862. 'It was somewhat praised,.... I knew and was content to know, that the poem soon found its way to the camps, as I heard from time to time of its being sung in chorus by the soldiers.'

Julia Ward Howe in 1861

She did not, however, realize how rapidly the hymn made its way, nor how strong a hold it took upon the people. It was 'sung, chanted, recited, and used in exhortation and prayer on the eve of battle.' It was printed in newspapers, in army hymn-books, on broadsides; it was the word of the hour, and the Union armies marched to its swing.

Her song still has a strong hold upon Americans.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

Her poetic phrases, many drawn from her knowledge of the Bible, have become icons in the American language. The Grapes of Wrath (borrowed by John Steinbeck for his book about the Great Depression) comes from a description in the Book of Revelations of fruit pressed into "the great winepress of the wrath of God."

The Ladies' Art Company pattern business sold this design as Grape Basket (BlockBase #712) beginning in the late 19th century. Similar patterns date back to the time of the Civil War. This week's block has a similar look with fewer pieces.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

A - Cut 1 background square 2-1/2".

B - Cut 1 background square 5-1/4". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts. You need 2 triangles.

C - Cut 2 background rectangles 2-1/2" x 4-1/2".

D - Cut 1 gold square and 1 background square 4-7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with a diagonal cut. You need 1 triangle of each.

E - Cut 3 light purple and 2 dark purple and 1 gold squares 2-7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with a diagonal cut. You need 5 light purple, 3 dark purple and 2 gold triangles.

Hear a version of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by a chorus on YouTube by clicking here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5mmFPyDK_8

You can compare it to "John Brown's Body" by clicking here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g74t-eNWEro&feature=related

 

Read a bioigraphy of Julia Ward Howe:

Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 by Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915. It's online at this University of Pennsylvania website:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/richards/howe/howe-I.html#VIII 

49 Yankee Puzzle

Yankee Puzzle by Becky Brown

Yankee Puzzle can recall the basic problem in Lincoln's war philosophy. Liberty and Union. Was it possible to have both?

President Lincoln from the Library of Congress collection

On December 3, 1861 Lincoln gave his first State of the Union address to Congress. He discussed a variety of administrative details but danced around a major policy decision---how to end slavery. 

"Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled 'An act to confiscate

property used for insurrectionary purposes,' approved August 6, 1861, the

legal claims of certain persons to the labor and service of certain other

persons have become forfeited, and numbers of the latter thus liberated are

already dependent on the United States and must be provided for in some

way."

Freed people working in a Union camp in Yorktown, Virginia, 1862

Photo by James Gibson. Library of Congress.

In other words: General Butler's policy of declaring slaves as contraband of war was now law. What of the thousands of Contraband camping on the edges of the free/slave map that was being rewritten every day? How to care for them? Where to care for them?

 Harper's Weekly, December 21, 1861.

This sketch of the refugee community in Beaufort, South Carolina,  is full of stereotyped imagery,

particularly in that it is titled "Work's Over."  You may notice this detail shows the women still working.

Nothing new. Is that a quilt or bedspread they are washing?

 Lincoln's tentative solution in 1861: colonization---

" at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization."

The federal government might budget funds to acquire a new territory:

"If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure effects that object, for the emigration of colored men leaves additional room for white men remaining or coming [to the new territory]."

This speech with its idea of a separate home for free blacks and freed blacks was just one small step in a solving a confounding puzzle: How to untangle the complex knot of slavery and save the Union at the same time.

Block from about 1900

Recall the State of the Union in 1861 with an old block called Yankee Puzzle by Ruth Finley in her 1929 quilt book. Other names for the design are Big Dipper, Electric Fan, Hour Glass and Pork and Beans.

(BlockBase #1195b)

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

There's only one piece, triangle A.

A - Cut  1 square 5-1/4" each of light pink, dark pink, tan and brown Cut each into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal lines.

Patchwork as Quilting Designs

Top by Thelma, Quilting by Judi

Judi at Green Fairy Quilts posted photos of a quilt she is finishing for Thelma.

She used the Order Number 11 design between the stars and then she did the various blocks of the week in the background.

See more by clicking here:

http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-shortage-of-photos-here.html

A wonderful idea. 

48 West Virginia

West Virginia by Becky Brown

West Virginia can recall the state created when part of one state seceded from the Confederacy. In 1861 Virginia was  a larger state than it is today. After Virginia joined the Confederacy, many in the mountainous northwestern  part of the Old Dominion believed their interests lay with the Union.

The illustration above highlights differences between Virginia life on either side of the mountains. The captions: "Life in Eastern Virginia: The Home of the Planter" and "Life in Western Virginia: The Home of the Mountaineer."

An illustration  in the New York Herald

showing the proposed state of New Virginia

with the Kanawha River running west of Charleston

Union loyalists met in Wheeling in October, 1861 and proposed a new state of Kanawha named after the river that flows into the Ohio River.  Kanawha was rejected as a name (We Kansans are glad, as a good deal of our mail would have wound up in West Virginia .) Other ideas included Allegheny, Columbia and New Virginia, but the majority of the delegates favored the name of West Virginia.

A sketch of the Wheeling Convention at the Custom House in

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, 1861.

The Custom House remains a West Virginia historical site.

The new state of West Virginia became the 35th star. The flag contained 35 stars for two years between July 4, 1863 and July 4, 1865 when Nevada became the 36th star.

The hills of West Virginia continued to be a battleground between north and south as various armies occupied territory and retreated throughout the war. Sixteen-year-old Serene Bunten wrote about Southern soldiers who came to dinner and tried to persuade her to abandon her Unionist views. The family managed to keep their cow but lost some bedding in that 1864 encounter.

"There was eleven rebels ate supper here last night. There was one Lieut. here and he kept his men straight....That Lieut. tried very hard to make Harry and I rebels but he had to give it up. They camped down at E. G. Burr's last night. Late. There was about six hundred rebels passed here today, they were driving cattle and I just expected they would take ours (cow) but they did not. They took Chet's but the girls got them back. It was a curious body of soldiers, they were dressed in all colors. They robbed the stores and houses all along the road. They took one blanket from us."


 

West Virginia (BlockBase #3798) is a variation of a block published about 1915 by Hearth & Home magazine, given that name when the editors were asking for a block for every state. The complicated design makes an even more complicated design when set side by side.

All very nice---but not at 8". This block this week uses the essential parts---a square that forms a diamond star when set side by side.

This square is BlockBase #2605, which was published in the Ohio Farmer as Star & Square in 1894.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

A - Cut 4 red and 4 blue rectangles 5-1/4" x 1-7/8". You will cut 4 parallelograms of each color by trimming a 45 degree angle off each end as shown. All the reds go one way and all the blues are reversed.  Remember these are NOT diamonds with four equal sides but are longer on two sides.

B - Cut 1 background square 5-1/4". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts.

C- Cut 1 background square 4-1/2".

A Quilting Party in Western Virginia, 1854

See Bertha Stenge's  20th century patchwork interpretation of this illustration at the Illinois State Museum.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/collections/daisy/qparty.html

Read excerpts from Serene Bunten's diary here:

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh48-1.html

And more about the creation of West Virginia here:

http://www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/statehood01.html

More Setting Ideas

I noticed on our Flickr page that Thalia has mocked up an diagonal chain in alternate blocks, which looks good. A nice way to unify some very different blocks.

And Magpie Memories is going to use the same set she used in her "Sylvia's Bridal Quilt."

I thought about a medallion kind of format. Sorta like this. All 53 blocks fit. The quilt is a little bit more than 95" square and it's easier than it looks because it's really just an alternate block set with the blocks on point.

I was inspired by this quilt that Terry Thompson and I did years ago for one of our Moda Civil War repro lines.

The pieced blocks are white squares in this mockup. The quilt is a grid of 7 x 7 blocks on point.

The border finishes to 8" with four pieced blocks in the corners.

This is the alternate block (A) finishing to 8".

Cut squares 8-7/8". Cut each in half diagonally to make 2 triangles.

Piece into squares.

You need 24 alternate blocks like Block A---

16 shaded in palette 1 for the outer ring and

8 shaded in a palette 2 for the middle ring.

To get the medallion shading you need a second alternate block (B) to turn the corners.

You need 12 alternate blocks B---

4 shaded in palette 1 for the outer ring,

4 shaded in a palette 2 for the middle ring and

4 shaded in palette 3 for the center ring.

Piece them as they are shaded above but you have to rotate these to get the medallion illusion.

Cut Block B

Cut the large triangles by cutting squares 8-7/8". Cut each in half diagonally to make 2 triangles.

Cut the small triangles by cutting squares 9-1/4". Cut each into 4 triangles with 2 cuts.

You also need edge triangles to finish out the sides.

You need 24 larger triangles for the edge. Cut 6 squares 12-5/8  ". Cut each into 4 triangles with 2 cuts.

And 4 smaller triangles for the corners. Cut 2 squares 6-5/8". Cut each in half diagonally to make 2 triangles.

For the border

Cut 4 strips 8-1/2" x 79-7/8". (2 1/2 yards of a border print would be plenty.)

Now do remember we have no technical editor here but St. Thomas over on the left so check my math before you cut.