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| New York Beauty blocks on point |
When I started these blocks [years ago] I had a more limited palette of reds and greens. It only worked for the first few but I didn't want to expand to just any color. So it got put away.
Now the fabrics include blues and even some yellows and purples. I think it looks much better but perhaps it just looks more contemporary. Popular colors change over the years as well as the pattern printed on them. Many of my older fabrics have a mottled background - lighter and darker shades of whatever color they used. Current fabrics tend to have solid backgrounds. My older reds are almost neon while the newer ones are happier and more clear. (Can you call red "soft"?)
Most of the multicolored fabrics have colors of similar value. After much consideration, I added a light fabric printed with large white, pink and red roses. Very pretty but a strong value change within one small piece. Then I made a big mistake: I centered one of the roses in the middle of the template. Do you see it below?
Now the fabrics include blues and even some yellows and purples. I think it looks much better but perhaps it just looks more contemporary. Popular colors change over the years as well as the pattern printed on them. Many of my older fabrics have a mottled background - lighter and darker shades of whatever color they used. Current fabrics tend to have solid backgrounds. My older reds are almost neon while the newer ones are happier and more clear. (Can you call red "soft"?)
Most of the multicolored fabrics have colors of similar value. After much consideration, I added a light fabric printed with large white, pink and red roses. Very pretty but a strong value change within one small piece. Then I made a big mistake: I centered one of the roses in the middle of the template. Do you see it below?
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| New York Beauty with "centered" rose in the background. |
Centering the entire rose is distracting; it's too overwhelming and obvious. Being the highest contrast, it really draws the eye away from the arcs. So I recut the piece. Here's my second attempt. Note to self: sometimes it is preferable to be asymmetrical.
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| New York Beauty with large multicolored rose fabric cut off center. |
We flew to Philadelphia last month. Along with lots of baseball, we saw Betsy Ross' (alleged) house. From the second floor, here or in the house next door (which no longer exists) she and her first husband lived and ran an upholstery business. Betsy, a Quaker, was read out of meeting when she eloped with John Ross.
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| Betsy Ross house |
She and John attended Christ Church where his father was assistant rector. For more than 50 years the steeple was the tallest structure in the United States. As such, it was used in maritime navigation.
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| Christ Church, Philadelphia |
Their pew was adjacent to George Washington's and located on the same side as the wineglass pulpit, commissioned in 1769.
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| Wineglass pulpit, Christ Church, Philadelphia |
We also visited the Free Franklin Post Office. Benjamin Franklin was our first postmaster and this post office cancels letters with a replica of his postmark, "B. Free Franklin." I loved the models of postal workers in uniforms over the years. There was more memorabilia in the museum upstairs.
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| Models of postal worker uniforms in the Free Franklin Post Office |
Happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans. Freedom and democracy are very precious.
Enjoy the day, Ann
Enjoy the day, Ann