More Farmer's Wife Blocks

I made another bunch of Farmer's Wife Blocks this past week. Big surprise, no?

#111 Wrench

I love the background fabric in this block. Unfortunately, I only ever found this fabric in fat quarters at Joann's. The black fabric is from one of StudioE's Essentials lines. I love those lines, though I don't buy much of them. Black and white fabrics in beautiful designs - total crack for me.

#053 Jackknife

I resisted the urge to paper-piece the corner units. Instead I pieced strips and cut from there. I'm not a big fan of the black and white fabric, but it gave this block some much needed breathing space, so I'll live with it.

#049 Honeycomb

I desperately need to get myself some more of that delicious yellow fabric, I really do... But anyway, #049 Honeycomb. I actually used my Tri-Recs ruler for this one, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Also, I pieced this without looking back and the book and actually pieced this incorrectly. The block as presented in the book looks like sheaves of wheat to me... I'm happier with this layout, so it's staying this way.

#072 Railroad

Another super easy block in which strip piecing methods made this a breeze. I'm really happy with the contrast of the strong aqua with the black and white fabric.

#073 Rainbow Flowers

Kind of a boring block, in my honest opinion. Of course, looking at it, I realized that it's essentially 1/4 of a Bento Block and that with strip piecing, I could whip out a Bento Box top in a weekend. *sighs* Another project on the to-do list.

#092 Streak of Lightning

Far more dramatic than my last attempt at this block. And, of course, it's in red, white and black. I really do have an obsession with that particular trio of colors.

#051 Hovering Birds

And, of course screaming bright green fabric had to make an appearance. Pretty easy to piece, though I did manage to avoid paper-piecing the quadrants with those big green HSTs.

#054 Kitchen Woodbox

More orange peel fabric! And I love the red/orange fabric here.

That brings me to a total of 38 blocks. I am officially over the one-third mark.

Some Steps to Health

I've talked a little bit about my health here before... Not much, because I've always wanted the focus of this blog to be my sewing, not my personal life. However, I've recently started feeling a lot of internal pressure to make better choices for myself.

As you all know, my mother-in-law recently had her left knee replaced. What you don't know is that my father has had a lot of health issues in the last couple of years, involving everything from having his gall bladder removed to a diagnosis of COPD. He's been getting his high blood pressure under control and is eating better...

Which is all great, and wonderful, and I'm proud of him and desperately happy to know he'll be around longer to see his grandson grow older...

But these health issues in the ones I love have just been making my anxiety over my own health just skyrocket. I've had a couple of anxiety attacks and have been growing steadily more morose over my body image. So, rather than let this drag me down some more, I took things in hand...

I purchased two-year memberships at a local fitness center for myself and my husband Wednesday afternoon.

Hubby is thrilled, which is surprising to me, and has reached out for this chance to feel better about himself with both hands. He's especially happy that there is a pool available for him to swim in.

For myself, I went both Wednesday afternoon and today after work. I'm taking things slowly - it's been a while since I had access to fitness equipment, and I don't want to cause an injury to myself that would discourage me from returning. Wednesday I simply took advantage of the treadmills and walked a mile. Today, I biked two miles, and walked another two.Not sure if I'll go Friday evening - my head cold is becoming worse, and I'd rather not spread the disease.

Hubby actually questioned the number of small colds I've had this fall so far - the answer seemed fairly obvious to me. I've been working in IT now for just under six months. That's six months in which my physical activity has been reduced to practically nothing. I have always been less likely to catch something the more physically active I am. Now I sit at a desk for eight or more hours a day, just to return home and veg on the sofa for a while. I think my limited access to people is the only thing saving me from a bout with the flu!

So, anyway... As cheesy as it sounds, I'm finally giving myself the gift of health. I'm giving myself permission to take an hour or more each day and focus on truly feeling better. This isn't about losing weight - this is about feeling my age and being free to run around with my son without getting winded. This is about being able to take stairs and not have my knees twinge with every step.

This is about giving myself a healthier future, where my body is working with me, not against me.

This Two Jobs Thing...

... is cramping my style.

Don't get me wrong. I am absolutely agog that I can, for the first time in forever, pay rent and have money left over. Admittedly, I'm still doing the oh-so-adult thing and paying off credit cards and utilities with that 'extra', but I'm not stressing finances the way I used to.

Still, working fifty plus hours a week seriously digs into my 'free' time. Not to mention, my mother-in-law is still in the nursing home undergoing therapy for her knee replacement. So, that one, precious evening 'off' that I used to have each week has been missing for about six weeks. And Zeb is in a serious 'attached at the knees to mommy' phase. Thankfully, my mother-in-law will be home on Thursday, but no word yet if she'll be cleared for driving or baby-sitting any time soon.

I'm sewing when I should be sleeping, but to make the most of that time, I'm pre-cutting at odd, free moments. I'd hand-sew something on the way to and from work, but I need to prep more fabric for hexagons and I just haven't felt like doing that.

My general lack of time means that I'm practicing project monogamy, which is frustrating in the extreme. I want to get something big done, like my DWR top. I want to quilt my baskets top. I really, really want to get caught up on the Test Your Skills Sampler. I'm seriously jonesing to see how that one comes out. I'm only able to post this because I promised my son some quality time with the PlayLand in our local McDonald's.

I'm sure you all have figured out what project is currently reaping the benefits of my enforced project monogamy: the Farmer's Wife Sampler. Six inch blocks are super easy to prep and zip through my sewing machine quickly. I am, however, getting to a point in which the remainder of my blocks will be paper-pieced. I've already decided that I'm going to switch out some of the blocks, because I really don't want to make all of the 5-grid blocks that require me to cut at 1/5th of an inch, when, really, they're basic shapes and shouldn't require paper-piecing. But, dang it!, I haven't found a quilting ruler that marks inches out in fifths.

So, anyway, enough whining. The whole point of this ramble was to point out that I have more Farmer's Wife blocks made.

#007 Birds in the Air

I ended up giving in and paper-piecing the 1" HSTs. I had actually successfully strip pieced these, but then I made a mistake and actually sewed on a half square triangle to the bottoms of the strips, which mean that I was piecing on a bias edge... I ended up throwing those attempts away. I'm glad I did though, as I'm much happier with my fabric selections this time around.

#025 Cups and Saucers

More of that grey fabric combined with a lovely poppy print from my stash. I actually cut off a couple of points in this block, but I'm not really seeing them from afar, so I'm ignoring them.

#038 Four Winds

I actually had a really hard time distinguishing the pattern in this block when I looked at the illustration and photo in the book. I deliberately tried to pick out fabrics with more contrast as a result.

#041 Friendship Star

Very simple, very quick block. I picked out a charcoal gray background fabric that's been in my stash for at least four years. I'd made one cut into it previously, and that was it, for my Grandmother's Fan top.

#081 Snowball

Another couple of fabrics that haven't been used in forever. I'm pretty sure I bought these fabrics back when I first started seriously stashing, which was seven or either years ago. This one is actually my second attempt at this block. I felt the first try came out too dark.

#084 Homeward Bound

I love these three fabric separately. I love them even more combined. I think I could argue that this is the most 'modern' looking of all the blocks I've done for this QAL.

#109 Windows

Okay, I am STUPIDLY proud of how nicely the points in my that QST match. I think I finally figured out my methodology for making them all so nice and perfect, which basically amounts to trimming, and then trimming again. And, I totally love the black and white dot fabric here. I seriously need to buy a bolt of this stuff.

Another seven blocks down. I'm up to 30! That's a whopping 27% of the blocks for this sampler done.

Happy Farmer's Harvest!

As I type this, my little boy is sleeping in my lap, exhausted from trick or treating for his first time, not having a nap, and having been in school today. He was Thomas the Tank Engine, and not entirely sure about the whole process of knocking on stranger's doors. He caught on pretty quick when he realized that candy was the reward though!

Tonight, I have more Farmer's Widow blocks to share. I cannot wait until I get some more sewing time. I really want to work on other projects, but right now, one block at each stolen moments session seems to be all I get to accomplish.

#010 Bowtie

More fussy-cutting fun! The butter yellow is a Jinny Beyer print. The white/blue print I found in Joann's nursery section. I thought it was too pretty and clean to put in an infant quilt.

#015 Buzzard's Roost

I ended up admitting defeat and paper-piecing this one. My original plan had been to make six flying geese units, but I kept losing triangle points, and that's just not acceptable.

#020  Churn Dash

I'm forcing myself to incorporate pink into these blocks. However, I must say I like the contrast of the more modern dot print against the very traditional tone on tone black print.

#026 Cut Glass Dish

So many freaking HSTs, and finishing at 1"!! I was very glad to sew the last seam on this one. I was going to use a more geometric print for the orange, but kiddo got to my pre-cut pieces with his own scissors. I'm just lucky he didn't attack the strips that were precut for the HSTs.

#031 Evening Star

I hadn't realized, when I was piecing these, that my Evening Star and Buzzard's Roost were going to come out so similar. I might re-do one or the other... On the other hand, there's a lot of blocks, and I can just place them far, far apart in the top.

#034 Flock

Aqua, raspberry, and paisley! Love :)

#084 Spool

Much happier with this iteration of Spool. I've had the gray background fabric forever, along with some coordinating prints. I've been collecting grays with pink and red in them for a Lone Star quilt.

That's it for this Farmer's update. I'm headed for bed.