Civil War Diary Quilt is begun

A group of friends and I have decided to make the Civil War Diary Quilt by Rosemary Youngs together. Each of us has picked a very different pallate of fabrics to use, so it will be interesting to see the quilts that result from this. We have only met once so far, looking at each others fabrics. I am using a very limited pallate of a blue paisley from the Hoffman Kashmir style line, a pink floral from Hoffman's Kimono Style, a pink Moda Marble and a very light blue Moda Marble, a light blue Hoffman from Potpourri, a gold print from Quilter's Paradise by Gail Kessler (Andover) and a cream with gold flecks.
Last night a few of us got together at a Finish it Friday and started actually making blocks. We started with a nice easy block, Oath of Allegiance, paper pieced squares. Paper pieced because these are 6" blocks and five does not go nicely into 6". I should have had us cut the squares a bit bigger, but it worked out OK.

Then we went onto Alarming Conditions, which is the first block, but not one I wanted to start a novice paper piecing person with. It is also a 5-patch, but with some odd shaped bits. I showed them Carol Doak's tip for pre-cutting the odd shaped pieces, and we got it cut out before everyone left but me. I HAD to get it pieced before I left, and I did.

I guess I wasn't that tired, and our hostess was still stitching away, so I also did the third block, Conscript Law, before heading home. I used Marti Michell's Perfect Templates for this block, A6 and A7. Need to press a bit better, but it really will be 6 1/2" when pressed. Love those templates!