BOMs Away Monday #2

Welcome to my first Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays! 

(I know this is a little early - trying to set it up for tomorrow - new at all this Linky stuff.)

Feel free to link your latest Block of the Month project at the bottom of this post. Hopefully we'll see all kinds of styles from Modern to Appliqué to Traditional to Paper Piecing! Go ahead and link a new post or one from the past week or so. And welcome to the party!  :D


I hope this can become a fun eye-candy/motivation stop-over. I am in a serious crack-down mode this year, and have found that blogging habits really keep me on target for my quilting goals (or pretty darn close, anyway). 


Many of the BOMs on my sidebar are UFOs that I pulled out of boxes. Several are new ones that I committed to before I did my January Great Roundup and found out how many UFOs I have. >YIKES!!<


I've been catching up several that fell behind during the craziness of last semester. This past week I got all the Patriots in Petticoats blocks finished from March, April, and May. This project does not reflect my favorite colors, and I find them a pain to work on - however - a love of history combines most magnificently with quilting when there are so many marvelous reproduction fabrics around. I jumped on this one when it came out. Each feature block coordinates with a woman who helped fight for Independence. Let me share the stories:


March Gal #1 was Sarah Bradlee, who had the fun of dressing her menfolk and their buddies up as Mohawk Indians so they could go dump a bit of tea into Boston Harbor.

March Gal #2 was Mary Pickersgill, who used over 400 yards of fabric and the help of 3 family women and 2 servants to sew a huge battle flag commissioned by Major Armistead. (It took them 6 weeks!) This was the flag seen by Francis Scott Key - the one that inspired our nation's national anthem.

April Gal #1 was Hannah Hendee. This fiesty and determined Mama rescued her own 7yo son and her daughter from a British press gang after being kidnapped by Indians bringing men and boys for bounty. She also intimidated the British officer into releasing 9 other children, whose families undoubtedly loved Hannah for the rest of her days.

April Gal #2 was Nancy Hart. Obviously at ease with handling arms, this hothead shoved British rifles through a hole in her cabin wall as she served the food that was demanded by the British soldiers who'd invaded her home. After some helpful beverages were passed around, she trained one of the rifles on them, and shot one dead when he didn't obey her command to not move. A second lost his life in the same manner before her hubby and neighbors arrived to help. Stories say she also dressed as a man and entered Tory camps to gain information for the Patriots. 

May Gal #1 was Anna Marie Lane, who enlisted in the Connecticut Continental Line, where she displayed "the garb and the courage of a soldier and performed extraordinary military services." Wounded in the battle of Germantown, she was awarded a pension of $100/yr from the state of Virginia.

May Gal #2 was Lydia Darragh. Kudos to the lady who spied on the officers forced upon her in her Philadelphia home, then raced several miles on foot through the snow to warn the Americans. At the battle scene later, General Howe was not amused that his major offensive was obviously compromised. 


[For the Jan & Feb stories, just go to my label for "Patriots in Petticoats" and scroll though the results.]
 
I also got the March work finished for the Glacial Star project and am halfway through the April work. Each division of work is done on 8 identical sections. This task has been compounded by the addition of the GIGANTICGEST foundation-piecing sections I have ever done, which is actually some sewing for my local guild's next Opportunity Quilt. It is the exact same technique, and the same thread works, so I figured I'd do them simultaneously. (Check out my paper foundation piecing tutorial on the Tuts tab above.)

March diamonds sewn onto the Feb flying geese

The April pieces have the most interesting lines! (Quite small pieces, too!)

The longest stitching line is about 28 inches~! (This is the Guild project)

Lots of catching up accomplished this week! Here's to getting through almost all the backlog that's left before the month ends.  


And now, it's your turn!  Show us the BOM you're working on lately. (Thanks for the courtesy of mentioning this spot on your own blog.)