The paper-piecing templates provided for this block on the Yahoogroup are so counter-intuitive as to be pointless. Seriously. DO. NOT. BOTHER. I paper-piece quite a bit, and would have put this block together in the manner that the book indicates: by piecing the central square and then adding on the pieced HSTs. The paper-piecing templates I downloaded have you piecing in strips, then futzing with Y-seams to inset four of the triangles.
URGH. WHY?
So, I went to my copy of EQ7 and redrew the block. Weathervane, as presented in The Farmer's Wife is a fancied up nine-patch, meaning it can be broken down into a 3 X 3 grid, so re-drawing it was easy. I've reset the groupings for paper-piecing to make this go together much easier. I've also set the templates page and rotary cutting instruction into PDFs for easy use. PAPER-PIECING -This file maintains the original seams as the book.
ROTARY CUTTING -This file maintains the original seams as the book.
TEMPLATES -- This file maintains the original seams as the book.
Okay. So I attempted to piece Weathervane keeping all of the original seams in place. Now I'm asking myself just why in blazes anyone would WANT to preserve all of that unnecessary piecing! There was so much bulk in places that my sewing machine balked. *sighs* Back to the drawing board, luckily for those of you who haven't come across this block yet.
Download the updated file here.
I'll leave the other up, in case people really, really want to go through all those extra piecing steps...
I'm going to continue going through the harder blocks in The Farmer's Wife and post my updated paper-piecing foundations here and on the Flickr group.
5 comments:
Oh, thank you for doing this! I was going to follow the paper piecing instructions on the Yahoo group, but I had no idea there were Y seams involved. This is my first attempt at paper piecing and I am so not ready to through Y seams into the mix too. Can't wait to see your block!
I know I'm a new quilter but I don't understand why some things need to be done in the most cumbersome way possible.
Wow, I just agreed to do this quilt with a friend starting this fall and I am bookmarking your site...Best help I have found so far for TFW...why didn't they put real directions in the book?
Thank you for posting your new "solution" to this block! I now have 11 Farmer's Wife blocks left to complete, and just came across your blog while trying to find a better way to deal with the Weathervane block. Thanks again!
While I was paper piecing this block (from the Yahoo group files) I wondered why they were doing it "that" way, but since I'm relatively new to quilting I assumed they knew what they were doing. When I came to those "Y" seams though I couldn't do it and went searching for help. Thank you so much for this; I restarted the block and am glad to say it went together very nicely under your directions.
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