Photos of James Carlile's Block

How was your Christmas?  We didn't have any visitors at home so I didn't have to get the house ready; but it did mean that we were the ones travelling.  Family commitments can be a juggling act this time of year - I hope you have had quality family time as well as your own space to relax and recharge.

I have completed two versions of James Carlile's block.  Carole sent me a silver gel pen like the one she uses and I found that very handy for the remaining leaves on my second block.


James' block done in one fabric



James' block in two fabrics

If you have blogged about your block you can share your blog entry using Inlinz.  If you use Flickr for your photos you can add them to the Chester Criswell Quilt album. 



1. Write your blog post. Publish it on your blog.
2. Copy the link of the specific blog post. This is not just the link to your blog itself (www.chestercriswellquilt.blogspot.com), but the link to the specific post: (http://chestercriswellquilt.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/hows-it-going.html)
3. Click the blue link up button above and paste your link into the box.

Thank you for sharing, it's fun to see how others use the pattern.  Block 6 belongs to Reuben Stubbs and will be available 7th January. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Godey's Lady's Book December 1850

School Days

Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was chartered in 1793, making it the first college in the newly recognised United States of America.  

James Taylor Carlile was a freshman student at Dickinson College in 1849.  It was run under the banner of the Methodist Church.

The president of the college while James was a student was Jesse Peck.  Peck was not the most successful academic and was the focus of many student pranks, including the most infamous prank in the history of the college. 
Peck was travelling by train to the Staunton, Virginia to make his initial appearance before the Methodist Conference. To seek revenge for a schoolfriend that had been disciplined for drinking and card-playing, a student sent an

urgent letter to the superintendent of the (insane) asylum there; a deranged relative had escaped from his attendants and would arrive by the railway cars at Staunton. Could Dr. Stribling meet him at the station and detain him? A physical description was given, together with the fact that the patient, as soon as approached, would announce himself as "Jesse T. Peck, D.D., President of Dickinson College."

Peck was duly locked up in the asylum until he was rescued.  The members of the conference thought the incident "a very amusing joke", a feeling not shared by Peck.

I hope you are enjoying James Carlile's block.  My sewing space is full of Christmas presents for children and grandchildren, my own sewing is waiting for the dust to clear.

I have been thinking about projects for next year.  I have a wedding invitation for November 2013 which is a good excuse to make a quilt from new fabric, not from the stash.  I have organised Babara Brackman's BlockBase for my own Christmas present.  I plan to use the program to draft the blocks from the Ohio Sampler that I showed you in my last post and make a reproduction for myself. 

What are you looking forward to making in the New Year?

Going, Going....Gone!

I have two antique quilts.  One you are very familiar with <G> and the other is a Mariner's Compass that I bought in an opportunity shop for $25.  Two objects isn't a collection, it's only a pair.  So I feel the need to acquire a third quilt so I can be a quilt collector.
I have been looking at online auction sites and have discovered the universal dilemma - the quilts I can afford I don't like, and the quilts I like I can't afford.  Never mind.  I though I would share two quilts that I definitely would have added to my almost-a-collection.

The first quilt was a pieced friendship quilt from Massachusetts.  The blocks are inked with signatures, poems and sketches of the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

The details are worth a look - the link is here. 

The second quilt has been for sale for a while.  It's also a signature quilt, this time from Ohio.

It was out of my budget so I tried not to look at it too often.  But as I was driving home work one afternoon I realised that this quilt ticked all the boxes.  It was a signature quilt like the Chester Criswell Quilt.  It was from Ohio (like me).  It was pieced, and it was a sampler.  It was bright and interesting.  I decided that regardless of the price, it was meant to be.
I got home, turned on the computer and looked for the quilt.  Can you guess?  It was sold.

I still love the look of it.  I guess that the tan pieces are faded from green.  There are at least 6 different sized blocks, and the spaces are filled with Chinese Coins and half square triangles.  I can imagine a young lady getting all her friends to make her a block, and then taking it to her mother and asking, Can you put this together for me?

I'll keep looking for my collection.