Pages

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

February mystery quilt

 The February mystery quilt is revealed!











A simple, but striking patchwork.

We added a first border which can be purchased separately if desired.  The patches are strip-pieced so they work up pretty easily.

The kits are cut - come and get 'em!

We are so grateful that so many of you have found your way in during the construction on Main Street.  The construction is moving right along.  We are so excited to see the finished product. You are welcome to use the back door during the construction.

Note: We will be vending and teaching at the Spring Retreat at Ruby's Inn next week (March 4 - 9) so the shop will be closed that week.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Friday, February 16, 2024

February mystery fabric

Sorry this info is so late in the month but we will be using fabric from the Heartfelt collection from Riley Blake for the February mystery quilt.








Beginning this month the price of the mystery quilts will be $39.00 as long as you sign up before the reveal.  If there are kits available after the reveal they will be offered at regular retail price. 

It is our goal to provide a quality product at an affordable price.  We are grateful for your participation and support.

 Call us at 801-465-9133 to reserve your mystery quilt kit.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Women of Faith and Courage

 Block 10 - Edith Cavell

 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Edith_Cavell.jpg

 

Wikipedia states that Edith Louisa Cavell (/ˈkævəl/ KAV-əl; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination during the First World War and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. Cavell was arrested, court-martialed under German military law and sentenced to death by firing squad. Despite international pressure for mercy, the German Government refused to commute her sentence and she was shot. The execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage.

The night before her execution, she said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, including both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved." 

Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father was vicar for 45 years. She was the eldest of the four children of the Reverend Frederick Cavell  and his wife Louisa Sophia Warming. Edith's siblings were Florence Mary, Mary Lilian and John Frederick Scott.

Cavell was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, then at boarding schools in Clevedon, Somerset, and Peterborough (Laurel Court).

Work in Belgium

In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school, L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (or the Berkendael Medical Institute) on the Rue de la Culture (now Rue Franz Merjay), in Ixelles, Brussels.By 1910, "Miss Cavell 'felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal' and launched the nursing journal, L'infirmière". Within a year, she was training nurses for three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.

Cavell was offered a position as matron in a Brussels clinic. She worked closely with Depage, who was part of a "growing body of people" in the medical profession in Belgium. He realized that the care that was being provided by the religious institutions had not been keeping up with medical advances. In 1910, Cavell was asked if she would be the matron for the new secular hospital at Saint-Gilles.

When the First World War broke out, Cavell was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

Assistance to Allied soldiers

In November 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funnelling them out of occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. Wounded British and French soldiers as well as Belgian and French civilians of military age were hidden from the Germans and provided with false papers by Prince Réginald de Croÿ at his château of Bellignies near Mons. From there, they were conducted by various guides to the houses of Cavell, Louis Séverin, and others in Brussels, where their hosts would furnish them with money to reach the Dutch frontier, and provide them with guides obtained through Philippe Baucq. This placed Cavell in violation of German military law. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were further fuelled by her outspokenness.

Arrest and trial

Cavell was arrested on 3 August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. She had been betrayed by Georges Gaston Quien, who was later convicted by a French court as a collaborator. Cavell was held in Saint-Gilles prison for ten weeks, the last two of which were spent in solitary confinement. She made three depositions to the German police (on 8, 18 and 22 August), admitting that she had been instrumental in conveying about 60 British and 15 French soldiers, as well as about 100 French and Belgian civilians of military age, to the frontier and had sheltered most of them in her house.

At her court-martial, Cavell was prosecuted for aiding British and French soldiers, in addition to young Belgian men, to cross the Dutch border and eventually enter Britain. She admitted her guilt when she signed a statement the day before the trial. Cavell declared that the soldiers she had helped escape thanked her in writing when they arrived safely in Britain. This admission confirmed that Cavell had helped the soldiers navigate the Dutch frontier, but it also established that she helped them escape to a country at war with Germany. Her fellow defendants included Prince Reginald's sister, Princess Marie of Croÿ.

The penalty, according to German military law, was death. 

Baron von der Lancken is known to have stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German as well as Allied. However, General von Sauberzweig, the military governor of Brussels, ordered that "in the interests of the State" the implementation of the death penalty against Baucq and Cavell should be immediate, denying higher authorities an opportunity to consider clemency. Cavell was represented by defence lawyer Sadi Kirschen from Brussels. Of the twenty-seven defendants, five were condemned to death: Cavell, Baucq (an architect in his thirties), Louise Thuliez, Séverin and Countess Jeanne de Belleville. Of the five sentenced to death, only Cavell and Baucq were executed, the other three were granted reprieves.

When in custody, Cavell was questioned in French, but her trial was minuted in German; which some assert gave the prosecutor the opportunity to misinterpret her answers. Although she may have been misrepresented, she made no attempt to defend herself, but responded to have channelled "environ deux cents" ("about two hundred") soldiers to the Dutch border. Cavell was provided with a defender approved by the German military governor; a previous defender, who was chosen for Cavell by her assistant, Elizabeth Wilkins, was ultimately rejected by the governor.

Execution

The night before her execution, Cavell told the Reverend H Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church Brussels, who had been allowed to see her and to give her Holy Communion, "I am thankful to have had these ten weeks of quiet to get ready. Now I have had them and have been kindly treated here. I expected my sentence and I believe it was just. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."  Cavell's final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, Paul Le Seur, were recorded as, "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."

From his sick bed Brand Whitlock, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, wrote a personal note on Cavell's behalf to Moritz von Bissing, the Governor-General of Belgium. Hugh Gibson; Maitre G. de Leval, the legal adviser to the United States legation; and Rodrigo de Saavedra y Vinent, 2nd Marques de Villalobar, the Spanish minister, formed a midnight deputation of appeal for mercy or at least postponement of execution. Despite these efforts, on 11 October, Baron von der Lancken allowed the execution to proceed.

On instructions from the Spanish minister, Belgian women immediately buried Cavell's body next to Saint-Gilles Prison. After the war, her body was taken back to Britain for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then transferred to Norwich, to be laid to rest at Life's Green on the east side of the cathedral. The King had to grant an exception to an Order in Council of 1854, which prevented any burials in the grounds of the cathedral, to allow the reburial. 


For this block you will need:
background-
    4) 3 3/8" squares
    5) 3" squares
    1) 2 1/2" x 25" strip
blue-
    5) 3" blue squares
    1) 2 7/8" x 24"  
 
















Sewing:
Draw a diagonal line on the back of each of the 3" background squares.  Match these with the 3" blue squares making sure the right sides are together and the outside edges are aligned.  Sew 1/4 inch on both sides of the drawn line.  Cut on the line.  Square up to measure 2 1/2". Create 10 half-square triangles. Press toward the blue.
 
Cut 10) 2 1/2" squares from the 2 1/2 " background strip. Match 2 of these with 2 half-square triangles to create a four-patch as shown in the photo below.









Create 5) four-patch squares.

Cut 8) 2 7/8" squares from the blue strip.  Cut each of these in half diagonally.  Sew two triangles to opposite sides of a 3 3/8" background square.  Press.  Sew triangles to the remaining sides of the background square.









Create 4 of these patches. Trim to 4 1/2" if needed.

Assemble and sew the patches as shown in the photo below to create the block.