I know what you mean about those civ war fabrics, katybob. we've said this before and sometimes I feel like redoing the real dull ones
but I did find out early enough about the brightness of the CW fabrics that I made a mix and with the variation of background in there it should be ok. But if you have through row I done already anyway, that would make a great size quilt!! [plus think of it this way - if you really want a blue one..... you'll still only be making 'only 2' at once!] If you want it a little bigger than it is with the blocks you have, consider Bonnie Hunter's 'storm at sea' sashing - awesome!! the sashing strips finish 2 x 4 1/2 - adding 1 1/2" to the width of all sashing strips from the original - so for 13 blocks across that would be 18" - I won't kid you - lots of work!
I will upload two of the three pictures I took yesterday [just looked at my files and the 3rd one disappeared!] First here are D11 and D8 - totally by hand. I used a little EPP on D11 and appliqued the center box and side diamonds on top. [As I write this down I'm wondering if I already posted these two?? there were no pics in my computer file til yesterday ;( ]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]346843[/ATTACH]Next are E1 and E2 also by hand except for the pieced border.[ATTACH=CONFIG]346844[/ATTACH]I had taken pictures of my D6 'challenge' and D10 'battlefield.' I absolutely loved the D10 - took me a while to find the fabric because I was determined to get something with blues and reds like the original because that was on the real battlefield. D6 -go ahead and laugh - was the most challenging block so far for me! I know one of the easiest, but I had a 5" charm square of a pink I wanted to use and that was all I had of that fabric. If you look at the original, you will see it is not made like the pattern or like 'that quilt,' it really does have a border separate from the sashing that gives it the extended octagon shape. When I cut the corners off, I didn't really cut enough off to get the right effect, so when I added the light strip all the way around I realized that only a little of it would show - I mean 1/16th - 1/32 of an inch!! on two of the sides if I take the right seam off and those triangles will get almost completely lost
and this was the third time I fiddled with it. Thinking of bringing those corners in slightly, taking 1/8" seam only on that triangle and putting wider border strips around it. I will re-take the pictures today and post - possibly go get camera now as I am bummed. Yes, this does mean I am still 5 blocks behind