Jump Off Creek---

Rectangle in the center block

Our book club read the book, "Jump Off Creek" by Molly Glass.  It is the story of how a single woman, Lydia, manages to homestead some land in southeastern Oregon in the late 1890s. I was inspired by several passages in the book. The first inspiration for me came when she arrived at her property to find that some men were living in her structure. She kicked them out. 

I was impressed she was able to get them to move on without causing her harm. Note that I didn't call the structure a home. It was little more than a roof and four walls. Her first night, she awoke to the sound of rain on the roof. She felt water dripping on her face and heard the vermin scurrying about open areas. She wondered if she had made the right choice of selling and moving away from the family farm after her dad died.

Quilting design

At the time, our quilt guild had a block of the month (BOM) program. The coordinator of the BOM incorporated a range of blocks to build skills. My color choice skills needed improvement so I would make a block or two. 

Mouse block with French knot

If you brought your blocks to the meeting, you would be entered into a drawing. You might win an assortment of blocks. For this project, I used blocks from two different months. Surprisingly both times, I was a block winner. 

I found out later that people would make blocks; but, didn't want to win blocks. Perhaps, they didn't like the block or the colors. Perhaps, they didn't want another UFO. Perhaps, they didn't want to deal with wonky blocks! Instead of writing their name, they would write another person's name who had turned in blocks.

The first block that I worked with was the inset rectangle blocks because the hole in the center represented the water dripping from the ceiling. The coordinator gave the block a better name; but, I don't remember it. I don't even
remember how I sewed it! I do remember that the technique was not difficult.

The colors were supposed to be red on top, grey on the bottom for the outer section of the block. The rectangle was supposed to be white on the top and black on the bottom. I think the slope of the block was supposed to be left side lower and right side higher.

Mouse block with beaded eye

When more than one person sews a block variations occur in color, style, size and color placement! Making the blocks play together can be the tricky part! I made more blocks and I made some blocks with a different slope and off color arrangement so those different blocks blended better. I spent some time arranging the blocks. I decided to go with a modern layout with the blocks in vertical rows. Because the blocks were a variety of sizes, I chose to sash the rows with a strip of black. I liked the center.

The second set of blocks I won were the mouse blocks. The mouse was supposed to be in red and the background was supposed to be cream. These were cool blocks in that the tail was made with embroidery floss
and the ears were three dimensional. A French knot defined the eye although some blocks contain beads for the eye. It was 

Label

tricky turning the ear.  In the story, mice were running all over her supplies so this was a great block too! The coordinator designated tail color; but, just like the block colors. . .some makers made a different choice.  I made a few more blocks and used them as a border. On purpose, I left spaces between
some groupings of mice.

When it came to quilting, I quilted the piece from the back. I was inspired with a fabric that had tree trunks on it. With a chalk marker, I drew trunk shapes and then stitched on these shapes. It felt so odd to quilt with the back of quilt under the presser foot! In the story, Lydia thinks her land has timber; but, when she arrives, she finds the previous owner had fallen the trees and left behind the stumps.

Finished front

By the end of the story, she is making progress removing stumps, growing a garden and figuring out how to survive. She even plants some flowers next to her cabin. I had a fat quarter of the black flower print. The borders became the size they were because that was how much fabric I had.

I named the quilt Red, Black, White and Mice All Over! I made it in 2006. It is one of my favorites. I'm still surprised that cream backgrounds and white backgrounds work together. . . after all neutral is neutral!

I'm linking with Cynthia at Oh Scrap/Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework because this is one scrappy project!