Hip deep in Civil War blocks.

Remember Barbara Brackman's 2011 Civil War Block of the Week?  I did the blocks but never assembled them because I had an idea of doing an appliqued eagle/shield center block.  I threw that idea out finally because I couldn't find a pattern that would work and frankly didn't relish doing that much applique.  But I still needed a setting for the blocks.

Around that time I got on a block-sewing kick using "The Civil War Diary" and "The Civil War Love Letter" books, and made 100 more 8" blocks (yes, 100!).  Those never got into a quilt either.

I didn't really think of these projects much until I started straightening my sewing room last week, when I unearthed them and decided that they really should be completed.  I dug through all the setting ideas I had compiled in EQ and finally decided what the quilts will look like.  There will be two of them - one using the Brackman blocks and the other using a lot of the Civil War Diary blocks.  I'm going to have blocks left over so there may be another small quilt too.  I didn't invent these settings but found them online.

 The lighter color X block was found at Thread Head's blog, where it was used for a prior Block of the Week.  Thanks so much for the idea - it's stellar.

I found the dark setting blocks on someone's blog right around the time that Brackman's blog finished publishing blocks but I can't remember where.  If you were the creative quilter that designed this, please let me know so I can credit you.

I'm working on both at the same time.  While waiting for the plumber yesterday I cut out all the navy, rust and beige strips for the second setting and sewed them together, so I have most of the components for these blocks done with the exception of the beige/navy four patches, which are half completed.  I can sit down and stitch together five or six of them quickly.  I did five of them this morning before breakfast.

I have most of the beige/green/tan block components cut too but those blocks are slower to make.  In both cases I have five out of eleven rows worth of setting squares.  I think both of these are going to be absolutely fabulous.

And BIG.

Oh, yes.  I'm doing Brackman's Dixie Diary block of the month now, so Civil War quilts aren't going away any time soon.

The thing is, I'm also doing Brackman's Grandmother's Choice Suffrage quilt, Animas Quilts Block of the Month, the Benjamin Franklin quilt at erik Homemade, a mystery at Garden Path Quilts, and when the new mystery by Linda Hahn starts at American Quilter, I might just do it too.  This gal loves a mystery!