At Piece with Time: Block Three -- Grandmother's Favorite

I love the name of this block.  I had two wonderful grandmothers.  They were as different as night and day in many aspects, but they both had a fierce love for their families. They also were both single mothers during an era when that wasn't the most socially acceptable idea.  My Grandmother Forbes had five children and her husband left her after he came back from the Korean War.  My Grandmother Moore had three children and we like to say "Grandpa Moore left for a business trip and just never came back."

My Grandmother Moore (Lois Eloise Hawkins Moore) was my father's mother and she lived with us off and on for years until the end of her life.  She was a little lady who was always kind and rarely had a harsh word for anyone.  And could cook.  Good Lord could the woman cook.  She invested that love in me early and I still like to cook, although now-a-days my favorite thing to make for dinner is reservations.  She also was an accomplished seamstress and supported her family with her talent when Grandpa left.  She made clothing and did alterations, but as far as I can tell, she never made a quilt.

(My Grandmother Moore and her Sisters. Grandma is the third from the left)

Grandma Forbes (Cora Perry Forbes) was my maternal grandmother.  Fiercely independent, she left her hometown of Spray, North Carolina and moved herself and five children to Burlington because the economic opportunities were better there. She put herself through nursing school and became a nurse at Alamance Hospital.  Grandma Forbes could do it all - cooking, woodworking, and sewing.  Her father had been a carpenter and her mother an accomplished quilter.  They both taught my Grandmother their crafts. That's where my quilting DNA comes from. Unfortunately I don't have a picture on my computer of my Grandmother Forbes.  I need to fix this and post one of her.

And now I'm a grandmother to one granddarling, Evangeline, and soon to little Ellie, who is due to debut in May.  I just hope and pray that I'm able to pass along ideas and desires and dreams to them the same way my Grandmothers did to me.


Okay, let's move on from the trip down my Memory Lane and get on with the block.

This block is very similar to block one.

I love the background 1 fabric I picked out because I can choose so many fabrics to go with it.  This is what I decided on for this block.

When you're making a quilt -- especially a sampler-type quilt -- it's important to keep some kind of color consistency through out.  I've decided to keep the same blue background for the blocks that have applique in the center of them.  I also used the gold that I have before but added a new green and a new pink.  The pink may look familiar.  It's the fabric I'm using in my setting triangles for the center Blazing Star.

The danger with a sampler quilt for me is that I love color.  Lots of color.  With a sampler quilt, I have the tendency to use lots and lots of different accent fabrics. Sometimes this can work if you have one background fabric, or all your background colors tend to be on the lighter shades of neutrals.  In At Piece with Time, you have four background fabrics and none of my background fabrics are neutral, and only one is solid.  So I have to be careful with my accent fabrics.  I don't want to overwhelm the quilt.

There are 32 triangles in this block.  That means there are 32 exposed bias edges.  Please starch accordingly and be careful when you handle them so they're not stretched.

Step three is very much like step five in block one.  Just watch how it's sewn together.

From this point on, I treated step four like a flying geese (goose?) block.  There are no pressing directions listed with this step, but I pressed towards the background triangles.

And watch for that "Magic X" when putting this block together so that no points are nipped off.

As you're assembling the rows, be sure everything matches up and your triangles are pointing the right way.  I always pin the heck out of my rows to keep them from shifting.  Press it well (and you may find a harder ironing surface works better than a well-padded one) and get ready for the applique.