Top Finished!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and took the time to give thanks to and honor our troops past and present.

After a long(er than anticipated) and torturous journey, the Aunt Grace "Circle of Friends" BOM top is finished!

Note: the top is laid out on my bed sideways to get a better shot of it.

  Actually the only real torture was the fact that I constantly butted heads with my own finishing deadlines and expectations.  I actually enjoyed working on this one, especially the applique, something I see myself doing more of in the future.

One change I made to the pattern:  in the cornerstones of the pinwheel border, there are fussy cut square-in-a-square blocks that are supposed to use this fabric:

I was surprised that given the name of the project, this fabric only featured the little blond Gracies.  Years ago, I can remember there being an Aunt Grace line of prints that had a different little girl with different names on each print (and might have been called "Aunt Grace & Friends" -- does anyone else remember these fabrics?) .  Although I came late to the 30's repro party, at the time I was able to score the "Annie" fabric and it has been in my stash for years and now I finally get to use it.  I decided to take some of my fabric markers and make my "Circle of Friends" a little more diverse.  So here is how the girls are featured in my blocks:

I already have the backing fabric for this one (the white with yellow flowers print at the top right in the picture of the top) and have started to think about how I want to quilt it.  But I don't know how soon I'll get to that since I really need to start on my Civil War projects and try to get something done for Myra's PHD Challenge which finishes up this month.

I've searched the web and am surprised to find very few other people doing this BOM project (or at least posting about it) even though there a large number of online stores offering the program.  And it must not have sold well because I've also found at least two sites selling the complete kit at a fairly big discount. 

So now onto the Civil War!!