Bragging: McCord in Mexico

Georgann Eglinksi started this quilt out with an appliqued block, 

"Classical Urn" from the book 

She put it on the wall at the weekly gathering of the SewWhatevers at Sarah's Fabric Store.

The group had lots of  Broken Dishes four-patches left over from another project. Pretty soon the quilt got bigger. One decision: What would be the perfect accent for those little squares?

Turquoise, of course.

Georgann appliqued the border too.

Her central block is based on Susan McCord's 19th-century Floral Urn.

We were extremely pleased with the results. I say WE but all I did was draw the original pattern, contribute a lot of dark red fabric and periodically say, "Turquoise."

Lori Kukuk quilted it on her longarm.

Roseanne said we should enter it in a contest. So we did. It was accepted into the juried AQS show in Des Moines last summer. We were going to enter it in the Group Quilt category but they don't have a group quilt category. So we entered it in the extremely competitive Machine Quilting Category. 

Were we proud to get in. We didn't win but we didn't care. That's one tough category.

Several people have complimented us on the quilt (Thank you, very much.) And asked how it looks so cohesive even though 9 or so people sewed blocks, discussed color, etc. The answer is the dictator theory. The SewWhatevers make a lot of group quilts. One person or a pair dictates the quilt---Colors, design, etc. The rest of us are just sewing wenches (or drawing wenches as in my case.)

Georgann was dictator in this case with a lot of color input from Carol and Sarah who have great color sense. Anyone who wants to can suggest a quilt and if the idea flies, everybody else helps as they can: Ironing, cutting out paper backs, sewing expert seams, contributing fabric.

We were also pleased to see Julee Prose's version of the sampler from the McCord book in the DesMoines guild show. She calls it Blue Denim. Julee's also won a prize or two with her McCord quilt in blue.

Another of Julee's blocks.

This one is McCord's Cut Glass Dish,

which I've appliqued a few times already.

Inspired by Julee I've been planning to do the Cut Glass Dish again in blues and taupe. Here's a plan in my last year's fabric line Union Blues. It would look good in this year's brighter Baltimore Blues fabrics too.

If you don't need much of a pattern this JPG will do. Print it 8" square. Enlarge it 200% for a 16" finished block. If you'd rather have a paper pattern, we'd be glad to sell you a book.

Here's a few other posts I've done on McCord-inspired quilts.