Farmer's Wife Frenzy

Two Sundays ago, I spent part of the day at work pre-cutting a bunch of Farmer's Wife blocks. Football season has started, and Janesville is full of fans, both of the Packers and the Bears. On top of that, the Brewers are doing exceptionally well. This meant that the mall emptied itself of shoppers as game times drew near on Sunday.

And. holy shingles! This pre-cutting thing works miracles. In three days, I made several blocks:

#011 Broken Dishes

You all might have noticed that I like to repeat 'themes' in my fabric selections. This time it was circles. And that navy fabric - it's really a pretty royal purple.

#006 Big Dipper

Quarter square triangles are not my favorite, and I'm trying desperately to ignore the one point that got cut off in this block. I don't know if I'll continue to succeed. However, I love this combination of fabrics.

#021 Contrary Wife

I'm trying to add lighter blocks in as I go along... And I've repeated the theme and fabrics. I just couldn't resist. Plus, fussy cutting makes its reappearance. Again, I would never do it for an all over quilt top design, but one off blocks... it's kind of fun.

#084 Spool

I'm actually really disappointed by this block. It needs more 'pop' in the color department. I'll probably be remaking this one. It's just too 'blah'. It's not helped by the very muted tones or the fact that the relative size of the prints is so close

#003 Basket

The handle is hand-appliqued. This is another one I might take the time to redo, mostly to secure the ends of the basket handle better, burying them in the piecing. I didn't mind the hand applique - that only took about fifteen minutes one morning.

I also precut Buzzard's Roost, but I wasn't happy with it, so I didn't photograph it. It's perfectly pieced - I just made a mistake when cutting and reversed my two fabrics so the values weren't placed the way I want. It's simple enough to rotary cut, so when I have some free time to pre-cut again, I'll add that to the to-do list.

While I was at the monthly Stitch 'N' Bitch, I paper-pieced two more blocks:

#005 Bat Wing

For this one, I used the fat quarters of Innocent Crush I received from my DQS 10 swap buddy. I love the look of this line, and the colors - it's just that the prints are freaking HUGE! And, hello! I work small blocks. I just don't dig the big blocks. So anyway, some more fussy-cutting to get a sense of movement. At the risk of being risque, Sandi thought this one looked like an especially talented stripper had gotten her tassels going in opposite directions.

Or an owl.

I'll let you all decide.

#001 Attic Window

Silly me! I once again forgot that the paper-piecing foundations available at the Yahoogroup aren't mirror-imaged so that the blocks come out they way their shown in the book. Still, not re-piecing this one, as I'm pretty happy otherwise. That awesome mustard green makes another appearance, along with a new acquisition in the form of that bright pinky-purple. It's actually a gradient fabric, but you can't see much of change in color, except for the top right corner.

So, seven more blocks into The Farmer's Wife Sampler. That brings me to seventeen completed. (Eighteen if I could the Buzzard's Roost that I just don't like.) I have about another dozen blocks' foundation patterns already printed, so expect a slew of paper pieced blocks before I move on to pre-cutting more rotary friendly blocks.