"Baltimore Rhapsody" Block #9 - the French Horn

My original pattern series, "Baltimore Rhapsody," is continuing to grow (you can read the back story here).  The French horn is my favorite brass instrument.  My younger brother, Riley, played French horn and now my daughter does too.  I never get tired of hearing her practice!

As with all the blocks of this series, this one finishes 15 inches square.  Even though I choose to hand applique, they can be done by machine.

Embroidery details make the fuchsia blossoms come alive!

The French horn got it's characteristic shape from it's ancestor, the hunting horn, and even before that, the conch shell.  If you were to straighten out all the tubing, you would end up with a horn of 12 - 16 feet in length...not very convenient to play at high speed from horseback while signaling the hunters!  Some unknown genius solved this problem by winding the tubing around his shoulder and under his arm.

Early "natural horns" had no valves.  To slightly change pitches, the player would loosen or tighten his lips, or simply stuff his hand a little further into the bell of the instrument.  In order to play in more than one key, the player had to stop and insert another "crook," which helped to make the tubing just enough longer or shorter to change all the pitches on the horn (the virtuoso of the time carried many with him).  Later these inconvenient crooks were replaced with valves.

When the French horn started showing up in symphonies, the French people thought it originated from Germany and called it the German horn, and the German people thought it came from France and called it the French horn.

French horn building...tubing and valves.

Bach and Vivaldi first infused their music with the French horn, followed by Haydn and Mozart.  Because it blends beautifully with strings, woodwinds, and other brass, the horn became widely popular in both symphonic and chamber music.  The low tones are deep and solemn, the middle range is rich and mellow, and the high range can be brassy and brilliant.

The characteristic beautiful tone is still being employed by composers (lots of nice horn "licks" in the soundtracks of all the "Harry Potter" movies...).


Bird building 101...

I am making up birds and flowers right and left in this quilt!!  I was looking at pictures of Paradise birds when dreaming this one up...kind of small, exotic birds with pretty head feathers.  I'm just a modern-day Darwin...

I am still working on the pattern printing.  I hope to have the first dozen patterns available on my web site soon, either individually or in discounted bundles.  I am now thinking about sashing for the first 16 blocks...traditional tiny sawtooth sashing or simple strips...hmmm...

Then, on to the borders!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

"Baltimore Rhapsody" Block #8 - the trombone

In continuation of my original "Baltimore Rhapsody" quilt (read back story here), here is the third brass block, the trombone, which is Italian for "big trumpet."  The brand of this one is "Conn," I embroidered it on the medallion on the lower parallel arm...

The old English name, "sackbut," comes from two French words meaning "pull-push, which describes how the instrument is played (pulling and pushing the slide to change pitches...).  Most 5th grade boys (and me!) think this is hilarious ("You play a sackbut, you play a sackbut!").

The trombone was actually the first brass instrument to be perfected in the early 1400's and was a favorite instrument in early church service music.  This was because early valveless trumpets and horns could not play the hymn melodies to lead the congregation in the singing of hymns. 

Four trombone sizes were used to match the voices, soprano, alto, tenor and bass, although the soprano and alto trombone versions were eventually discarded.

The tubing of the tenor version, when unwound, measures about nine feet long.  Trombones are very popular in jazz, concert and marching bands.  Most people recognize it's signature "slide" sound.  Symphonic masters such as Brahms utilized trombones in beautiful brass choir sections along with trumpets, French horns and tubas.

I decided to reverse applique the posie centers so they would look "deeper" than the petals.  This requires cutting a center hole in each posie petal section and turning the edges under (instead of turning the edges under on the center and simply stitching it to the top of the petal piece.

Here I am snipping tiny slices (to "ease" the edge) with my little scissors before applying the gluestick and turning the inner edge segments to the back.

After applying the Elmer's Disappearing Purple Gluestick to the center edge, I fold/prod the edge segments down, using the paper pattern (ironed to the front side) edge as my guide.

Now I audition posie centers, choosing possibilities from my tiny saved scraps.

(my clumsy fingers really like using these long tweezers to pick up and manipulate all the fussy little pieces...)

Here are the backsides, with centers glue-basted into place, ready to do the hand applique (off block).

Ta-da!  I was playful with my centers, using a big polka dot and a fussy-cut swirl on two of them.

Tracing the freezer paper leaves...

Thank you to everyone who either left comments or emailed me about remedies for my thumb!  After a couple of days away from stitching, I have healed, and now I have"Liquid skin," masking tape, clear finger nail polish, band-aids, a small homemade leather patch, etc. in my sewing kit to try as I continue stitching this weekend!

Now that I have disallowed "Anonymous" comments, I have had no more spam blogger emails in my in box!  Yippee!  If you would like to be able to leave comments (and participate in give-aways!) on peoples' blogs, it is very easy to get a free Google account. 

All you need is an email address and a password.  You can do this without exposing personal info in your profile.  It just makes it possible for us to respond to your comments and questions (and pick you as winners!).

I will be posting a long overdue give-away on Monday to celebrate going over 500 followers (thank you to everyone who follows my blog - I appreciate each and every one of you so much!).

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

p.s.  The patterns of "Baltimore Rhapsody" are original copywritten designs that will be available soon!