Ruffled Roses and Civil War Progress

The wet, stormy weather has given me a chance to get caught up on my sewing.

I finished the corner appliqued blocks and was ready for the new blocks for this month.

Four more baskets. This is a total of 20, and I think there will be one more set next month.

The next set of swag borders. This is a total of 21 blocks. It looks like November and December have more sets.

The Civil war blocks just keep coming. This one (#38) is called "Ohio Star" John Brown had an obsession with antislavery, and recruited two black, free soldiers from Ohio to fight to take over Harper's Ferry. They were easily defeated and the song "John Brown's Body" came from that scrimmage.

Block 39 is called "Hovering Hawks" and the hawk is a scavenger/predator bird. Soldiers who were compared to the hawk were called "Jayhawkers" They were the scavengers who could go into a town empty-handed and leave with a wagon filled with supplies, and drawn by a team of horses.

Block # 40 is called "Order Number Eleven". Order #11 was named for a Union order forcing Southern sympathizers to leave their homes. There are reports that the marauders would just invade the homes of those sympathizers and take everything they could carry away. This block is from the memory of a 10-year-old girl who saw the soldiers take away one of her mother's quilts with this design. The design is also known as the reel or the Hickory Leaf.

It is appliqued, which I did with the sewing machine.

Block 41 is the "Red, White, and Blue Quilt". Every Civil War sampler needs a pieced star block. This was difficult to piece together. It does not lie as flat as I would like, but it should be okay when the quilt is complete and quilted.