Design Wall & Memorial Day

Memorial Day is upon us again. I have been reflecting on the many, many soldiers who have given their lives to keep us a free nation. What selfless sacrifices were made. What untold suffering. I've been pondering on the Revolutionary War and the heroism displayed in a small, ragtag assortment of freedom-seeking people. Against all odds and countless sacrifices and death, these stalwart men achieved an unimaginable victory against the strongest nation in the world.

The Civil War was a fierce battle to obtain the rights for every person, regardless of color, to have the basic right: the right to be free to think for themselves, to direct their lives according to their choices and not be "owned" by anyone but themselves.

In both World Wars, the United States again fought valiantly against foreign foes to secure our freedom. My uncle was one of them. My son serves and daughter served in the Army during the current war. I count them as heroes.

I hope we can all remember and revere the heroes that have fought and are fighting to keep America the proud nation of freedom for all. I don't know your feelings about war but whatever they may be we can all honor the men and women who have been in the Military to do their duty and are filled with honor.

There is no conceivable way I can segue into the next subject: my design wall.

Here it is!

Just a portion of the blocks for the log cabin

Having a three-day weekend is always signal to me for lots of quilting! Thrilling!

Saturday I valiantly started squaring my blocks for the Log Cabin. I was going to add more strips that day. Yee haw. I couldn't wait to see the next light added on.

And from here it went downhill....

Some of the blocks were coming out perfect--yeah!!!!

A little less than half of them though...

wouldn't square up. Grief.  Agony. Woe. Agony.  Add your own adjective here: ____________

I was laying them out with my square ruler and drawing where the seam line needed to be to make it square. Nice idea, if it worked. I was drawing seamlines that were sometimes 1/8 of an inch. I cast around for solutions. I could tear them apart and start over. 31 blocks. I could sew a small piece of material to each edge to extend the block. I went with this plan. Separated all the naughty ones out to be in my quilt. Suddenly, I remember Ricky Tims, in a workshop, saying to a women who had the same problem as I. "Well, darlin', you just wet it down and iron it to death!"

I gave it a try and...hallelujah...it worked!!! So the picture you see is of some of the 31 blocks pinned to my ironing/cutting surface. I made a template where the 5" was cut out of the center. I wet down the blocks thoroughly and stretched and pinned them to the right size.

The funny thing is that just by wetting them down and smoothing them out they pretty much stretched out to the right size.

Now I'm off to unpin them and sew my little heart out. I can't wait to see the next light side put on. Hmmm.....didn't I say the same thing Saturday?




I'm hooking up with:
Patchwork Times.
I have to say
freshly pieced
sew much ado
A Creative Princess