The Generals

My hubby is a Civil War buff and I wanted to make him a Civil War themed lap quilt for his birthday in 2006, that's how The Generals came to be. This was my first attempt at designing my own quilt pattern. I started with the idea of making a soldiers quilt. But, then one day while browsing on eBay I discovered a lady who made quilt panels from old tobacco cards. She happened to have a set of Civil War Generals made from a tobacco card set dating back to the late 1800's. The panels had both Union and Confederate generals represented and each set contained 25 generals. When the panels arrived they were all different sizes, so I have to add fabric to crate a standardized block size. I added the red star, flannel fabric to create a block 7 1/2 inches by 7 inches. Each row of blocks was then separated by a row of 4-patch and solid 4 inch blocks. I tried to select fabrics that represented the war. The red flannel represented the south, the solid blue with tiny hearts the loved ones lost in that awful war on both sides, the tans used in the 4-patch represented the cannon balls, and gun fire from both sides. The border of blue stars is for the north and the backing is Confederate gray. I alternated the generals so that no two Confederate or Union Generals were side by side. My hubby truly loves this quilt and will tell the story of each and every general on the quilt.
This was also the beginning of a new quilting journey for me. From this quilt on I never use a pattern---I find creating my own very fulfilling.