Why Do I Not Like This Block?

 

Generally I try to keep my blog entries positive, but every once in awhile I find myself pondering why I feel one way or another about a certain topic. Then not wanting to be cut off from humanity, I begin to wonder if anyone else feels that way.

Specifically, does anyone else have a particular quilt block that rubs them the wrong way?

I know that Don Beld, the founder of Home of the Brave Quilt Project, is clear that he doesn’t have any plans to become sewing buddies with Sunbonnet Sue. He said just that during a trunk show that I had the pleasure of viewing in 2002.

For me, it is the Churn Dash block, the Monkey Wrench, the Shoo Fly, or whatever you want to call it. You will never see me making this block.

Talk about snap judgments! It was dislike at first sight. I don’t know why, but the instant distaste was okay with me. After all, there were plenty of other blocks in the sea.

Many years later, Don Beld returned to our guild to share some of his new quilts. Please let me qualify, however, that even though the quilts were technically new, they were meticulous historical replications of designs that commemorated various military events. And don’t you know—that was when Don pulled out a quilt that had row upon row of those Churn Dash blocks.

This isn’t that exact same quilt, but you get the idea. In this arrangement, the design is known as General Sherman’s March.

Several years later, I found out that my great great grandfather, Levi Pennington, went on General Sherman’s March. He was a soldier who had reluctantly left his wife and many children behind to run their farm in Kentucky so that he could join the Union Army in fighting slavery.

The rest is documented history:

Levi Pennington was a Lieutenant under Sherman, who later received a field promotion to Captain. The promotion was confirmed by act of Congress but Pennington died when hit by a cannonball in the "Battle of Vicksburg" during the Civil War, at Chickasaw Bluffs, Vicksburg Mississippi, before the paper work was processed.
He was Captain of Company C, 7th. KY. Volunteers

Birth:
Aug. 30, 1821
Perry County
Kentucky, USA

Death:
Dec. 29, 1862
Vicksburg
Warren County
Mississippi, USA

I feel proud and very sad about the fate of Levi Pennington. I don’t know if my dislike of the Sherman’s March configuration is purely incidental, or part of my family’s collective unconscious. I was not even aware of Levi until well after I became a quilter.

There have been devoted Pennington quilters throughout the generations. The closest in age to me was my Grandmother Pennington, but I was much too young to ask her any questions about quilting. She passed away just as I turned two years old.

I wonder what she would have to say about that Churn Dash block.

Do you have any strong feelings about a certain quilt block?

 

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***The Home of the Brave Quilt Project is a grassroots effort to make and present a quilt to the family of every soldier who has died in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The project was started in 2004 by Mr. Don Beld, a nationally known quilter and quilt historian of Redlands California.

It has become a nationwide movement with a coordinator for nearly every state and is staffed entirely by caring volunteers. We are dedicated to honoring the memory of our fallen heroes and bringing comfort to their families. So far, 4,672 quilts have have been given to 3,924 families across the nation.