Callie's First Ever Quilt Block

Hi everyone! Callie reporting in for writing duty!

History is really important to me. Not just from a textbook but just in general, and not just from a world-wide point of view but in my own family tree too. (And there's a lot of history and diversity in my family tree, so there's a lot to learn!) And that's part of why, besides because I like to make things, when this quilt-a-long thing came up, I wanted to try it!

If you have never done a quiltalong before, it's when a whole group of people all make the same blocks every month. I'm really looking forward to the end so I can see what the rest of the group does too! We're doing two blocks a month for a while and our first block is a nine patch! I looked into the history of the nine patch a little so I could learn two things at once.

My nine patch colors are really bright! Mom says that's okay and that I can pick whatever I want and the blocks will look just fine together at the end. I'm not really sure that it's not going to look crazy, but I don't mind crazy sometimes.

Fabric used to be pretty valuable and when peoples' clothes got too worn out to wear, repair, or pass down anymore, women would sew them into quilts to make great big, functional quilt tops. They used whatever they could find, like feed sacks and stuff like that and they made really pretty quilts out of it.

But a great big quilt top just isn't easy to spread out in a wagon, so women had to find a smaller and easier way to carry their fabric around with them and that's how the nine patch came to be! They could make a whole bunch of nine-patches and then piece them together in the end, so they could work while they were traveling. I think that's pretty nifty!

And here's me with my sort-of finished blocks! Sort-of finished because they do still need to go in the rest of the quilt, but that won't happen for a long time and I'm trying really hard to focus on this month only with this project. Of course, I didn't hand-sew my nine patch together, and I wasn't in a wagon (which is regrettable, but my mom says that her first quilt block was a nine-patch and she had to hand sew it so maybe I'll get to do that after all!), I used the machine in the sewing room. But I'm really proud of it! What do you guys think?

Love, 

Callie

PS: I didn't put the instructions because I'd basically be copying them, but if you want to follow along or make your OWN quilt block you can see the quiltalong here!

Clothes: 

Dress, barrette and sandals: shimmer and lace party dress

Necklace: Grecian princess costume