Starting the Quilt Project

 

Fabric for the primary bricks – perfect!

Today, Friday September 2, 2011, I start the Quilt project in earnest. This is prompted by a call I got yesterday from my Quilt Guru, Dr. Joan Gaither. She’s ready to help me, we are meeting Tuesday. This is what I’ve been waiting for! But my notes are sketchy, my plans not fully formulated. I have the advantage of working at home today, and starting with a clear head – holiday weekend, my daughter’s off at school, my husband’s at work. A new laptop at home is going to make all the difference, too. My printer is nearly new, and thanks to a generous donation of amazing fabric from Vicky Petersen of the Captain Salem Avery Museum, I can develop my first steps. One of my visions for the quilt is to use fabric rectangles of “bricks,” laid next to one another but not stitched together, to give the pattern of bricks-and-mortar. It will probably make my process infinitely harder, but that’s my vision and for now I’m sticking with it.I went online to determine a size I’ll use for my model of a colonial brick. Typing “dimensions of a colonial brick” into my search bar, I found a site, http://www.sizes.com/materls/brickNonM.htm, that gives me the dimension for Colonial America of 8 3/4 x 4 x 2 5/8. They also caution tht bricks varied a LOT, and cite Ivor Noel Hume, so I decide to use that as my model brick size. After I cut a bunch of cardstock bricks, I eyeballed them and they look fine to me!My next step was to cut the fabric and wrap fabric around a few of my cardstock models. I don’t want to do anything permanent yet, these are just experiments. They look fine, now back to my notes, sketches, and the fabric store!