Presenting "Sesquicentennial-ISH"

Could I pick a harder name to say?? This is the top - it's not finished but I wanted to share. The challenge is for the Oregon Sesquicentennial. To make a pattern that was around in 1859 and use the same methods to make it. So this top was hand pieced - including the sashings! There are 13 blocks. I wrote in names of quilters I sewed with in Nebraska.

The block name is Album Patch and I found it in the "Remember Me: Women and their Friendship Quilts" by Linda Otto Lipsett. The two Album Patch quilts shown in the book are from 1849 and 1854. I love this book - excellent photos and excerpts from diaries of the era included in the text.



That is not my handwriting! I did what any pioneer woman on the wagon train would - I found a font on the computer, typed out the names and used a lightbox to transfer it to the blocks! But women back then had other people sign their names for them or even made a tin name stamp ... so they would have done the computer thing; if they had them! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Besides why do you think I type so much? Sometimes I can't even read my own handwriting!!!

It's called SQ-ish because there are at least 5 fabrics in there that aren't era-correct! I looked up 1850's on reproduction.com but forgot to check back in with fabrics in hand. The purples back then were more 'eggplant' colors. And there is one background fabric that has squiggles on it - definitely not old - though it is the correct color! Next up to quilt it. Hoping to finish it by the time I get back from Nebraska in April. I dread binding BOTH sides by hand!

Friends in Nebraska were at the Spring Retreat this weekend. I'm jealous but I loved 'talking' to them on the phone. Whether in person or messages relayed thru whoever had the phone. Retreats are a wonderful invention, I miss the Nebraska ones - but I get to participate in my first Oregon one at the end of the month. I'm really looking forward to it.

I got the pink wedding quilt back from the long-armer this weekend. I have the binding cut and ready to put on. Hope to have it finished by the quilt guild meeting this Thursday. I think I'm still hoping we'll get to go to the NY reception at the end of April ... but DH says not this year. I'll post a picture after binding - hope it's just one of the finishes for March!!! Optimistic, I am!

No babysitting this week, so hoping I'll be in the mood to sew like crazy!