Across the Spectrum

Across the Spectrum is a lovely quilt designed by Sherri Bain Driver and all done in Civil War reproduction fabrics. It was featured in the January/February 2011 issue of Mc Call's quilting magazine. My wonderful Civil War reproduction Yahoo swap group, Nickelswap, has picked it up as a monthly block-swap. I sent in my 3 sets of CW pinks and 3 sets of CW blues earlier this month, but forgot to get pictures.

Right now, I'm working on the blocks for the November 15th swap, which will be Civil War yellows, greens, and oranges. The Criss Cross blocks, as they are called, use smaller pieces than I am used to working with, and I need 6 identical blocks per set.

These blocks are 5" unfinished and will be 4 1/2" finished in the quilt. The ecru fabric is "Pie Crust" Primitive Muslin and has a very softly mottled tea-stained look to it.
I'm working on some greens, too. Here are the strip-sets assembled and pressed being sub-cut into units to be sewn back together into the blocks:

Because of the deadlines, I have completely set aside my Blue Ridge Beauty for the time being, but I hope to get back to it.
In the meantime, I had gone quite overboard on ordering fall bulbs, especially the large yellow Dutch Master daffodils! I bought 80 from Breck's, and then ordered 50 more from the Belknap County Conservation District fall fund-raiser sale. I gave away bunches of them to my sister, Anne, and to her adult daughter, Michelle, for their respective birthdays. But I still had a LOT to get into the ground! My dear son, Matthew, came to the rescue!

I lost track of the exact count but we put in over 50 and got them all in before dark! Yippee!