Sad And Lonely Days

It's Civil War Saturday and I worked on the block named 'Sad And Lonely Days' from the Civil War Diary Quilt Book from Rosemary Youngs. It is the last block in the Isabella Buchanan Edmondson's section of the book.  Isabella did not have an easy life and this diary and many of her diary entries are filled with unhappiness and this entry confirms that. She suffered much heartbreak, her mother died in 1861, her sister died in 1871, her father died in 1872. She was engaged twice but left her with heartbreak when engagements were broken. When she died at the age of 33, She may have been engaged a third time to a Yankee officer. In this particular entry she states several times...."I am so unhappy..." Rosemary designed a block that I think relates Isabella's state well with the color choices of dark colors and purple.  I tried to recreate my block with the same type of color choices.

Here are the dark colors I pulled from my Civil War stash.

I cut my fabric into triangle sections to make it easier to paper piece.  I printed up my foundation paper using Rosemary's companion CD for the book. Makes completing the blocks so much easier!  Remember my first few blocks that I did for this quilt, I hand drafted the squares.

Sewing on the lines... you can see that I numbered the rows of the foundation paper so I could keep track where the white triangle goes in the block.  Rosemary broke the block down into 6 rows of triangles.  She used 6 different fabrics in her block.  I used 5 different fabrics.  I had a hard time coming up with a sixth fabric that worked in the block and I was too lazy to drive to the quilt shop for a fat quarter.

Here are the rows, ready to be sewn together.

Sewing the rows together on the 1/4" seam line.

'Sad And Lonely Days'
July 26, 1864

Next week I am looking forward to spending some time at a cabin having some fun in the sun. I am looking forward to spending some well deserved hammock time reading. I've downloaded the book "Killing Lincoln".  I'm looking forward to reading it. I will be checking emails lakeside and doing a little design work for the fall show.  But other then that, I hope to catch a fish or two, feel the sand between my toes and drink a margarita or two or three.  Have a wonderful week! Remember to post your progress on the Civil War Diary Quilt Group on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1547598@N25/

Happy quilting and perfect stitches to you!

Check out Rosemary's website.  Her books and Cd's can be ordered there too!