Project time

My quilt guild, the Honeybee Quilters, is having a Civil War challenge this year. Simply put, they provide us with three fat quarters of the ugliest Civil War fabric they can find, and we are to make something that includes "recognizable quantities" of those fabrics. We bring the completed projects to the April meeting, where they are voted on by the membership and cash prizes awarded.

Two of the fabrics really aren't bad, but the third is a (period-appropriate) burgundy/orangish-rust/tan plaid that is rather odd. While it's not mandatory that the projects be replicas of antique quilts or quilts in the style of the period, it seems silly not to do just that. There's also the fact that quilts of the period tended to have lots of geometric piecing, which is especially easy to do with modern cutting techniques. I've been collecting Civil War reproduction fabric for a while, and have more than enough on hand. And to top it off, the fabrics I have are primarily double pinks and madder browns, which will blend fairly well with the challenge fabrics in a scrap-type quilt.

So - one of the easiest of the blocks appropriate to the period is the Churn Dash - aka Double Monkey Wrench, Double T, Hen and Chickens, Hole-in-the-Barn-Door, or Shoo-Fly. Didn't I mention before that this particular block had multiple names? It looks like this. Or at least the basic outline; my coloring is considerably different.

With a little persistence, I can have it ready in more than enough time to meet the challenge deadline. There is, however, a quilt show in early April I'd like to enter, and this seems like the perfect project. We'll see.