October 17, 1951

Babs is staying all nite with me. We went to the show “Quebec” with Corrine Calvet. I loved it. Ruby & Roy went to the dance at Joyland. I wrote to Maureen and Peg Koger. I’m tired.

Another movie I could not find to watch. From the information I could find, “Quebec” was actually filmed in Canada, and also starred John Drew Barrymore.

Joyland was a local establishment, outside of town, that hosted live music and dances almost every week. Mention Joyland now, and it’s usually referred to as a “house of ill repute”, so it’s reputation must have severely declined before it shut its doors for good. Babs recounts a time when Ruby and Roy attended a dance there, (could it have been this very one?) when Roy had a little too much to drink. He all of a sudden jumped up, grabbed a chair, hauled it out onto the dance floor and proceeded to cut a rug (quite noisily, I understand, with the chair in tow), making quite the scene, at which point Ruby marched out onto the dance floor and told Roy she thought it was high time they went home! Can’t you just see it?

Option 1 (large quilt):

Today’s a big day. We’re going to use those strip sets we made to frame all our Setting Blocks. These instructions are only for those of you who are mitering your corners. If you are not mitering corners, I’ll have more information for you later.

So here we go:

You should have at least four sets of these strips so far. After you work through today’s steps, and if everything goes OK, then you can make the rest.If you worked through the mitering corners tutorial that was published earlier, these steps will seem familiar and should be easy for you. If you get stuck, refer back to the tutorial if you need to. I’m not going to provide as much detail here as I did there, but I do have lots of pictures for you, so I think it should go well.

First, you need one of your setting blocks and 2 of the strips sets. Lay them out as shown.Make a dot 1/4″ in from each corner of the block on the back side. Mark the centers of the block sides and the short side of each strip set with pins.Match them up, right sides together, and pin in place. Stitch, remembering to stop and start exactly at the dots. Backstitch at the beginning and end.Press the seam toward the strip set. Repeat on the opposite side. Next, add a strip set to each of the remaining sides. Mark centers with pins.Match them up, right sides together, and pin in place. Stitch from dot to dot. Press the seam toward the strip set. When you have all four sides done, it should look like this:Now you’re ready to do the actual mitering. Work with one corner at a time. Lay it out upside down as shown, with the bottom strip on top of the side strip.Mark a line from the dot to the corner where they meet, using a ruler for a guide.Fold the strips right sides together with the block folded up out of the way, and pin in place. You have to be extra careful with these to make sure that each set of strips lines up as well, so pin carefully. Stitch from the dot to the corner, backstitching at the beginning and end. Trim the excess fabric off 1/4″ outside the stitched line.Press the corner flat.Repeat for the other 3 corners of the block. When you’re all done, it should look like this:Now you  just have to do this for your other 5 Setting Blocks! I’ll give you a few days . . .

Option 2 (small quilt):

It’s time for you to get to start setting your quilt together, so you should be thinking about setting possibilities. If you have a design wall, design floor, any space to lay all your blocks and setting blocks out together, take some time today to play with them and see if you can come up with an arrangement you like.

It’s helpful to squint at your layout, or take a picture with your digital camera, if you have one. Seeing it like that can help you make sure you have the colors evenly distributed and give you another way of looking at it to make sure you like it before stitching.

Here’s how I think I’ll be doing mine, but I’m going to be looking at it from time to time and probably rearranging some more before I start sewing.I’ll give you a couple days to do some playing around with your layout, then we’ll start sewing them together, OK?

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