deciding

Most of my quilts are squarely modern, I’m a lover of lots of negative space, solids, and clean lines.  But over the last couple of years I’ve been doing a fair bit of needle-turn applique, starting with the “squircles” of the Aerial Grove quilt by Carolyn Friedlander.  I found the needle-turn soothing, and a bit meditative, especially in the evenings.  Though I was enjoying it, I found the idea of doing more pictoral intimidating – how do you do it?  How do you set it up?  Do you have to trace all those pieces?

But this year I’ve been doing the Sarah Fielke Simple Folk block of the month, which has answered all those questions for me!  And I feel more confident and comfortable with applique, especially with her excellent instruction videos.  Points, valleys, and tiny circles are now not a problem.  Plus, glue basting, what a revelation!  And recently, having finished my BOM block, I found that I was sad that I had no needle-turn to do. 

The internet revealed a plethora of cutesy ducks, owls, and other patterns that seemed mostly aimed at making children’s quilts.  Or else very floral based patterns.  But when I found the civil war bride pattern, it fit what I was looking for.  A substantial project that I could get my teeth into, some birds, people, and animals as well as flowers and plants, and a style that wasn’t too cutesy or juvenile. 

I ordered the pattern from threadbear in Australia, which worked well for me, as I’m in New Zealand.  While I waited for delivery I googled as many pictures of the quilt that I could.  The design is based on a quilt top in the American Folk Art Museum collection.  This quilt “Bird of Paradise Quilt top” is dated 1858–1863, and it’s maker is un-identified.  It’s an interesting quilt because although there are templates for a husband, the quilt top only has the bride.  The most likely explanation seems to be that the husband was a war casualty, but is an unknown.  The civil war bride quilt pattern is not an exact replica of the bird of paradise quilt, the borders in particular are quite different, but overall the quilt is similar. 

A pale background with muted colour applique is the most popular colour scheme for the civil war bride quilt, but I’m thinking about using a dark background with brighter, vibrant colours.  Finding fabrics is my next step!