QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Monday, July 1, 2013

Civil War Jubilee Free Pattern

Civil War Jubilee
Moda Project
76" x 88"

Find the free pattern from Moda here:

The quilt design above was a collaboration between me, the fabric designer, and Susan Stiff, a Moda graphic artist. When designing Civil War Jubilee, the collection of reproduction prints commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, I thought of a patchwork chain for the free pattern.

We had this image depicting the New Year's Eve Watch Meeting,
waiting for January 1, 1863 when the Proclamation
went into effect.


I went through my BlockBase program looking for chains and found 92 patterns with the word chain in the name. This is drawn from a vintage quilt, published by Betty Hagerman in her Telegraphics quilt column in 1980 as Chain. It had possibilities and looked like the rectangular links in the old Watch Meeting picture.
We simplified it, colored it counterchange fashion---alternating two shadings. 

What's light in Block A is dark in Block B.



Susan kept my two-block shading idea but changed the color arrangement to something with less symmetry by adding some light solids among the dark reproduction prints. They pop out at irregular intervals.

She also added an inner border, here on the right,
so the block design carried out into the border and you don't get those
floating triangles as in my sketch.


We give you the fabric requirements as yardage, but since the pre-cuts come out first
you might want to think strips and squares.

Oda May, the mathematical master of the Moda Bakeshop blog, has done a post in which she reworks the cutting directions for the project for pre-cuts like JellyRolls - 2-1/2" strips.

See her method for adapting patterns for use with pre-cuts.
http://www.modabakeshop.com/2013/05/adjusting-patterns-for-pre-cuts.html

And Lisa at Vintage Modern Quilts has a Learn to Quilt thread going.
She shows you how to cut the pattern efficiently using yardage---
yardage of a different era.


I'm so glad that people who can add are working with my fabrics. Mathematics was never my skill area.


4 comments:

  1. Beautiful pattern and colors. I need to get my jefferson ladies out and finish it, just need to do the sashing so hopefully I can get it going today.

    Debbie

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  2. Well designing fabric is one of your great skills & I hope you still like doing that. I just got some Civil War Jubilee fabric & I love it!!! One of my professors always said "you don't have to know everything, you just need to know where to look it up"!! Have a great week. Judy

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  3. I would love to get further info about the Kossuth Feather quilt you mentioned in an old post. I believe it was my mother's. Could you tell me where you saw it, or anything more?
    Karen

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  4. I am making the Civil War Jubilee quilt. Under the cutting for fabrics 3 and 4 it says to cut 8 2.5 strips, then from 6 cut... then from the 8th strip cut... My question is this: What about the 7th strip?

    Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my question.

    Wilma

    ReplyDelete