Westering Women - A Brackman BOM

In my continued love for sampler quilts and block of the month projects, I have again joined an online Block of the Month by Barbara Brackman. In this one she is providing stories from women who headed West and settled the United States.

I am making two versions. One with Kaffe Fasser Collective fabrics paired with Moda Grunge fabrics. These will evoke color blocking and bold colors. The second set will be pastel/pale with a bit of yellow in each block.

The first two months of each set are done:

Block 1 - Independence Square

Block 2 - Indian

Month 1 - Independence Square

Month 2 - Indian in an Indian (cannibilism?)

The challenge for Month 2 - Indian is the 6" square in the middle of the block.

For the bright version, the difficulty was only in selecting which flower to include.

For the pale version, I decided to piece something for that middle area after seeing one done with a pieced center on the flicker site for Westering Women. After fiddling around with some options, I decided to replicate the larger block in the middle -- so I made a 6" version of the block.  I decided to do this in order to keep from having very large portions of the yellow I am including. I wonder how many more of these I might end up doing that way? Uh oh!

The Splendid Sampler

Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson are hosting a mac-Daddy of all quilt-alongs. They are providing two blocks per week (release Sunday and Thursday) and have enlisted over 80 designers to provide the patterns for the blocks.

The Splendid Sampler - Happiness in stitches

Well, I resisted, I really did.

And here are my versions of the first seven blocks, which will finish at 6":

Pat Sloan - Hearts Aflutter

Jane Davidson - Wings

Melissa Corry - Lots of Love

Jen Kingwell - Happy Happy

Celine Perkins - Simple Simon

Natalia Bonner - Focal Point

Amy Sinibaldi - Snug as a bug

As you can see, so far we've done applique, piecing and embroidery. While they are perfectly happy to see what everyone does to make the blocks personalized, I am going to stay pretty close to the designers' versions. For the applique, I am fusing and machine quilting, when I can. Above with the Happy, Happy block, I didn't feel like maneuvering around such small circles, so I fused them and put french knots in some and straight stitches around the edge in others.

I have a feeling this is going to be another year of expanding and honing my skills. So far, so good!