Another session of frustration...having succeeded yesterday with the digital, today I am back to where it'll load the pictures into the computer, but not in a file I can access from blogspot.
Sooooooooooooooooo...Tonya had commented she wished she could get a better look at my Riding the Orphan Train utility quilt. And here it is. I went and cropped the size and did a bit of a zoom in, so you can pretty much tell what is what for blocks.
Not everything was a block. I had begun cutting and piecing a free-in-the-quilt batt pattern, and just didn't like the result. Those became the really odd pieces that you see across the top and over next to the 9 patches. I actually like this quilt but then I know the saga of the Orphan Trains that left New York carrying unwanted children west across America, in hopes of finding them homes.
In 1853 there were over 30,000 immigrant children living in the streets of New York City. A seminarian Charles L. Brace founded the Children's Aid Society, and for the next 70 years transported children west to America's frontiers in hopes of a family for each of them.
Orphan blocks are not generally held in very high regard. But I feel they are another link to our quilting heritage. Not every child is beautiful or wanted, but it doesn't mean they don't have a purpose. I'm not much of a "planner" when it comes to quilts. I work more from figuring out how a particular block is pieced, and then pull fabrics (or often, scraps) and begin making them. Sometimes it becomes a quilt, and sometimes I just don't like it well enough to make alot of them. Sometimes I make waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many...LOL.
I'm able to do a planned quilt..really I am..*VBG*..I just don't find it very much fun. And when I'm done, I'm mostly happy to have stuck to it and finished it. The sticks and stone quilt was like that...all that saved me was the silly poem about witches with stinky boots on the orangish fabric.
OK..now I'm thinking and I'm not sure I have posted any "planned" quilts here. I'll have to go back and look. If I can't make peace with the digital, I may have to show you "planned" quilts...LOL..but not today.
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5 comments:
oh those poor little orphans. Sad things happened back then too... not all 'the good old days'
love your quilts... just gorgeous- they must have a history about them!
Finn -
I love the orphan train quilt. I had heard of the orphan trains before. This is exactly the kind of quilt I want to do with my orphan blocks.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the closer look. I LOVE orphan block quilts. I've got a pile of mine ready to go together one of these days. Last time I laid them out together I didn't have enough of them, but that was four-ish years ago.
Thanks gals..it's quite wonderful to find acceptance. The orphan kids that were "collected" and re-located were a by product of the huge immigration to the USA in the early 1850's. Many parents died of disease, or on the ocean crossings(especially from Ireland). Other kids were "out" of the home due to an inability to feed and cope with such large families.
There was a documentary made and shown back in the early 1980's about the Orphan Trains. One lady, a Mrs. Fuchs, was interviewed as being one of the orphans. I was very moved by her story, mostly because I am the mom of 5 adopted kids. She told the story from the perspective of the orphan child, her views had moderated over the years and into adulthood, but the wounded child was evident. I wrote to her and directed it to the network, and she received my letter and sent a nice reply. I'm not sure if I still have her letter or not. I was very moved to hear from her personally.
I think it's a "piece" that every child not being raised by it's parents, and not knowing why has to deal with. One piece in the quilt of our life that is being pieced together. It's a challenge of a size that is only known by the person facing it. I have watched my 5 face and deal(or not deal) with it. It's a path less traveled, but becoming more well known across our globe. Today it's the AIDS orphans, and more.
So much loss of security left for the little ones to deal with.
That quilt is dynamic with design! It must have been so much fun to see it come together. I love bright colors. I like the way it still reminds people what those orphaned children experienced. I think we just bought a video about that.
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