GRANDMOTHER'S CHOICE: ALICE'S FLAG

This week's block  for the Grandmother's Choice quilt is Alice's Flag.  It is reminiscent of the flag Alice Paul made.  She used three panels, and then added an askew star every time a state ratified voting for women.  The 19 amendment had been introduced in the late 1800/s, and was brought up again and again at every session.  What the women wanted was a national ammendment that would allow all women in the USA the right to vote, as state by state ratification of the 19th amendment was so slow.

GRANDMOTHER'S CHOICE BLOCK 3: UNION SQUARE

This week's Grandmother's Choice block is Union Square.  It is used to represent the "processions" women organized, first in England, and a few years later in the USA, to make their needs known.  Nowadays, it is common to have marches for social change, but it was a new idea at the time.  The women carried signs and wore coordinating colors.

We are having a dark, rainy day here, and I think that influenced my color choices this week.  None of the darks in my palette grabbed my attention today.  I went from medium gold to lights.  It looks festive to me, as the women would have been, processing through the streets.

There's a link to this BOW about Women's Suffrage and the right to vote on my side bar.

GRANDMOTHER'S CHOICE BLOCK 2: AMETHYST

This is block 2 in the patterns being offered by Barbara Brackman, on Women's Suffrage.  The name of this block is Amethyst.  It was chosen to represent the colors used by the Suffgragists and the more militant Suffragettes in England.  Their banners, etc. were made using symbolic colors:  white (purity), green (hope), and purple (dignity).  You can link to this BOW on my side-bar to read more, or to join in.

GRANDMOTHER'S CHOICE, BLOCK 1

 

Here's my block 1 for Grandmother's Choice, the new BOW about women's rights.  I'm happy with the way it turned out and with my colors.  I did pull some more mediums today.

 

My Grandmother was a teenager when women gained the right to vote in the U.S.A.  When I was 44 'ish and 'back in college' (a late bloomer?) I took a class on Women's History in the U.S.A.  It was actually about women's rights in the U.S.A.  While studying sit-ins, protest marches, arrests, and hunger strikes - and forced feedings in jail - I asked her how she felt about all this at the time.

 

I was shocked that she found the women to be 'kooks'.  This grandmother worked for pay her whole life.  She was always modern for the times.  Cut her hair and wore flapper clothes when that was in.  Owned and ran a farm by herself after her husband died.  I thought she was quite modern.  Kooks???  She said yes, while she and her friends were all for women voting, they thought the extreme measures taken by the women's rights advocates were nuts.  And all the men thought the women would just cancel out their votes.  Geesh!  What a surprise.

 

As a child of the 60's, I grew up with protest marches, sit-ins, hunger strikes, and arrests.  Even the National Guard murdering students at Kent State.  Even assassinations of civil rights workers, and one of our beloved presidents.  I thought, "Good for them!"  I wouldn't have had that courage. 

 

But then I realized I thought the women's liberation movement movers and shakers seemed like kooks to me.  Bra burnings?  Unshaven hair on legs and underarms?  Leaving your kids in day-care (which I actually did for a few months).  But I'm all in favor of equal rights for women in the work place and society.  Hmmm..................  What comes around goes around?

 

I'm so proud that we've come so far.  Women are free to stay home with thier kids, or work outside the home.  They are free to do what works for them, their goals and dreams, their families' needs.

 

You can find a link to this BOW in my left sidebar and earlier posts.

START

Today after church I started getting ready for my Grandmother's Choice BOM.  Step one, select fabrics.  Gold and black or gold and deep violet were often the colors used for suffrage banners, etc., in the United States.  To be true to the cause for the quilt, I've washed and pressed this grouping, all from stash.  Looks like I might need a few more mediums, but we'll see.  The gold of that era was more what we call cheddar today.  I think I'll look for more of that in my stash.  I'm sure my CW bin must have some.






The BOW just started yesterday.  Maybe I can keep up.  That would be a first!  Here's a link in case you'd like to join along, or just read more about the struggle for women to vote, not only in America, but around the globe.