You might remember that there was some devastating flooding in Central Tennessee earlier this year. This is Anna Maria Horner’s neighborhood. She created a project, which I talked about on Thursday, called Rainbow Around the Block. Simply, she is collecting 12.5″ unfinished 2 color blocks (e.g. red and white, blue and orange, etc). These blocks will be made into quilts and given to families who lost their homes, belongings, etc.
Last week, she sat down with her children and designed blocks. I think this is a very nice idea. I can picture the children drawing and coloring and talking with their mom about helping these neighborhood families. We have these kind of times in my family where the lull of filling in a spot with color without the distraction of screen noise helps to free the mind from the mind’s monkey chatter and allows people to bring up interesting conversation topics.
She intends to post a version of each child’s work on the Rainbow Around the Block page as a group called The Horner Family Blocks. The first one, The Joseph Block, is up already. It is a simplified version of a Square in a Square block and simple directions are given for sewing it together. I am concerned about the way she suggests cutting a square into the quarters that the quiltmakers will have a lot of bias blocks to work with. Perhaps that is part of the plan? In any case, you can make any block you wish and a variety are already posted for your viewing pleasure in the Flickr Group.
I made two blocks. I don’t normally make 12×12″ (finished blocks) and the pieces seemed so large. I just made them, though, without questioning or quibbling. The first deadline is July 1. Close to 100 blocks have been posted to the Rainbow Around the Block Flickr Group. People have really taken the idea of letting the fabric do the work, that I talked about from the Jane Sassaman lecture, to heart. I guess they got the message sooner than I did!
What will YOU make?
