Four At Once

Oh my, I hope to never do that again. The dreaded getting behind a week turns into a month all too quickly! I have, however redeemed myself and gotten all caught up once again. Whew.

It was one block in particular that gave me trouble and my drive to get three blocks cut out last week stalled over it for a few days till I got the colors properly sorted out. That, however turned out to be just the beginning with that block. You see, the corners are made of squares and half square triangles. You start by cutting the squares at 2 inches. So, a lot of pieces and a lot of matching of seams to get it looking right. I worked on the sewing for quite a while. Every once in a while I had to take a break because my head would no longer cope with figuring it out. The block is called, "Best Friend for Martha Lloyd." Martha was Jane's friend.

If you look at the Austen Family Album blog at: http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/ you will see that there was a block the week before this one that I haven't shown you. It's called "Crosspatch for Mary Lloyd Austen." It's set on the diagonal, but not too difficult. I redid several joins to get them to match better, but that may have been a function of tiredness by that point. The word crosspatch reminds me of books like "The Bobbsey Twins" I read in my childhood. It is quite descriptive of the type of person who is not agreeable and a bit of a troublemaker, but not much used today.



Next I put together the block named: "West Wind for Tom Fowle." Tom was engaged to be married to Jane's sister Cassandra, but a stint as a Navy Chaplain took his life before they could be married. Find the full story on Barbara Brackman's blog.





Since my labors put me past another Sunday, there was one more block to make before I could say I was truly caught up. This block: "Friendship for Anne Brydges LaFroy" is to honor a woman who mentored Jane in her writing, being a published poet herself. This block is a slight variation on a nine-patch and went together quite easily.

So, now I have a little break till next block. I really would prefer to not get left behind again!