The April A to Z Blog Challenge is an annual blogging event in which participants blog every day (except Sundays) one post for each letter of the alphabet for the entire month. My theme for the year will be “Quilts and Ozark Slang.” So gitchur coffee or sodapop, grab a pilluh, and sit a spell.

The Letter today is E.

Book Illustration

The layout that needs ironing.

Something I haven’t Explained yet is the reason to lay out the pieces as you see above. One reason, for me at least, is to make sure all the right sides are facing up. Sometimes the difference between the front and back of a fabric is pretty similar…..until you sew it together wrong. Then it sticks out like a sore thumb. And of course you’d be obligated to rip it out and sew it over. Just a pain when you are on a timeline like this A to Z Challenge. Carpenters measure twice, cut once. Quilters check the fabric by it’s right or wrong side as well as if it’s in the correct direction. We’ll leave the ‘direction’ of the fabric topic for another post, though.

Eight Hands Around is a title that is supposed to be a reference to a quilting bee. And one of the words you may hear a few old-timers say at said quilt gathering is ‘Edumacated’.  It’s just saying, “They went off to college, earned a law degree, or Ph.D, or some other higher education.” In such a setting, it would be used to suggest pride in the one they’re referring to. Because of course, we want to see our friends and relatives do better. It gives us a sense of pride that they came from our region and “made it” in the world. Success gives us mothers something to brag about too. (wink wink)

There are many more wonderful blogs this year that I hope you can spend a couple minutes reading. All you have to do is click here and select something that interests you. To read about the A to Z Challenge and what we are all about, click here.