Breaking the Log Jam

If I'm honest, I have to say I am well tired of this Austen Family Album Quilt project. If you have been following this blog, you will know that I have had my difficulties here and there with patchwork techniques I'd not been familiar with and with color choice and placement. I had finally managed to get to block #27 King's Crown for George III. There were difficulties with the measurements given on the blog, which our erstwhile blogger, Barbara Brackman did correct in a day or so. I had of course attempted the cut before I saw the correction, so had to re cut one piece. If you look at the examples in her blog, you will see that in my version I added another jewel to the crown.  As always if you are interested in finding out how the reign of George III affected the life and times of the Austens, please look here.


Next came Crossroads which tells the tale of Jane's acceptance at age 27 of a proposal of marriage from a 21 year-old Harris Bigg-Whither and what happened next. This blog entry describes much of the difficulty of finding a mate in this time in history.

This block as you can see involves the motif known as "Flying Geese." I've always liked the look if them but had never tried them. After getting this block cut I started the construction. That's when the log jam occurred. I sewed the triangles together in 12 little birds and then sewed one set of three together. Major Jam. It was quite uneven and crooked. I hated it and it sat in the sewing room for at least three weeks. More likely, a month. I kept thinking, if only this had been a paper piecing pattern. I knew I could have rocked it. Last week I gave drafting a paper pattern a try, but I already had the pieces cut. Theoretically I should have been able to make it work.

Today, after letting my brain work on the problem for quite a while I decided to mark where the seams should be after carefully measuring. It's not perfect, none of my blocks are, but I think it's a decent effort.

So, two more blocks down and there should be eight more to go. As my math is notoriously bad, I will consider this a good estimate and soldier on. Almost there really, considering where I've been. I have the next block cut and ready to sew. I have seen the blocks up to and including the one in yesterday's post (#36). Lots of triangles, the mention of an inset seam which I think is likely the dreaded Y-seam, renamed to sound less ominous. So a bit to go, but I must finish now that I've gotten this far, I think.