Crawling Towards Completion

Thirty-seven more blocks to go. Three of them are do-overs, and one needs a m. I'm feeling an urge to actually quilt and finish something though, so I need to pick up some batting soon and finish out a top or two.

#105 Wild Goose Chase

I totally did not intend for the pink geese to be so perfectly fussy cut - the fabric has a tiling look to it, and I wanted to capture more pink than green. Still, it actually looks really good. I'm kind of sad that the 'sky' for the green geese looks more randomly cut, but I'm so not going back.

#106 Wild Rose and Square

I was not ready to do another red or pink block, and I've used too much gray for backgrounds lately. I let the squares in the corners determine my other fabric choices.

#013 Buckwheat

Paper-pieced,  and some old favorites from the fabric stash.

Sewing Progress

I know, I know. I haven't posted about the trip yet. Writing time since getting back has been very slim, and I'd rather do some justice to the trip, since the shopping was awesome, and the people more so!

I started this project on a whim months ago, and got the two blue-ish flowers done. Then I stopped. For a long, long time. Needing something to keep me awake, I pulled this project out right before leaving on Saturday morning. I had just enough time before Sandi arrived to cut some more hexagons with the Accuquilt GO!

I completed three flowers while on the drive. Clearly, I've decided to use brown for all of the centers. Why? I don't like using brown in my quilts, so I'm going to burn up what I have in my stash with this project.

Wait until you see the next flower! Let's just say it involves a certain *ahem* adult-themed fabric.

#040 Friendship Block

Slightly blurry photo, but, frankly, I'm too lazy to take another. It's way late :) Paper-pieced, by the way.

I used two coordinating prints from an older collection in my stash. I love this collection so much, but never cut into the majority of its coordinating prints out of fear. They're very busy, and I wanted to be sure about the project they would go into, as I'd never bought so much out of one line before.

#045 Grape Basket

I couldn't resist the fabric I picked up on the St. Paul trip, so all of the blocks I've pieced since getting back are out of what I purchased. This one came together easily. Again, I altered the sizes of the patches in order to make it rotary friendly. When it's not so late, I'll go back to Flickr and add patches sizes in the notes on this block.

#052 Hovering Hawks

Mmm... white and grey polka dots on yellow, and more grey. I swear, I was in heaven shopping on this trip! I ended up paper-piecing the large HSTs in the opposing corners, because my brain wasn't letting quilty math happen.

#101 Wedding Ring

Again, fabrics from the new purchases, except for the white tone-on-tone. This is probably the only block from this particular sampler in which I've nearly matched the colors as done by the author, but it's more grey and yellow, and I have so much more than I did :)

Again, I altered the sizes of the patches in order to make it rotary friendly. I'll go back to Flickr and add patches sizes in the notes on this block at a later time.

Seventy five patches into the Farmer's Wife. I have three more blocks in the Farmer's Wife that can be rotary cut easily. The rest, some thirty-four of them (one a re-make), I feel will be better served by paper-piecing. After that, I can turn my attention to the deciding which blocks to make to get to 122 blocks for my setting.

Last Week's Blocks

I actually pieced these all last week, on Thursday evening. I'd meant to post them during the day on Friday but then I got distracted with spending time with the family and cleaning before I disappeared for a road trip to St. Paul. More on the trip in a later post, because it was AWESOME!

#063 Ozark Maple Leaf

I've actually had the pieces for this particular block cut for a couple of weeks. I just kept skipping over it, despite its relatively quick and easy construction. Ah, well. It's done now!

#046 Hill and Valley

A very low contrast block - it's actually more attractive in person. However, I need a few blocks like this to make everything work well together. I'm still feeling these red-violet/raspberry colored fabrics.

#075 Rosebud

A bit of carelessness led to me having to re-piece one of the quadrants. Those big HSTs in the quadrants? Yeah, I sewed one on in the wrong direction, and then cut it, so I didn't have a rosebud in the end. No big deal. I caught the error before I cut all four quadrants.

#076 Sawtooth

I'm having a lot of fun picking fabrics for these blocks. I like to pair the unexpected. Here, a very contemporary print by Kate Spain with a Joann's Fabrics damask print.

Sewing and Sowing

Once again, some more Farmer's Wife blocks completed. Not as many as I'd hoped, by two. I used a batik in one, and the dye bled over into the white fabrics even with dry ironing. The other - I just kept sewing wrong. I got so frustrated it was safer to stuff the block in the waste basket along with the one with the batik fabric in it.

#001 Attic Windows

I think this was the final block I needed to remake to remove all of the cream from the quilt top. Much happier with this version.

#042 Fruit Basket

I'm officially into the blocks that are on a 5 X 5 grid. After working through one via paper-piecing, I decided to rework the patch sizes to that they'd work better on a six inch block. Click on the picture or block name to be taken to its Flickr page. I've made notes on all of the 5 X 5 grid blocks to indicate the finished size of the patches.

Fruit Basket is almost identical in construction to Grape Basket, which is one of the blocks I threw away. I'm hoping to get fabric cut for it later today.

#028 Duck and Ducklings

A couple of my favorite fabrics at the moment. That plaid, and some Michael Miller Cufflinks in green. Again, patch sizes adjusted to make the 5 X 5 grid work.

#050 Honey's Choice

Patch sizes once again adjusted to make the 5 X 5 grid work. The golden fabric is from the Joel Dewberry Heritage line. The spotty gray fabric is a Walmart print.

In addition to getting these four blocks done, I was able to work on my Double Wedding Ring top. I almost have two rows done. I need to sit down and complete a bunch of sub-units to make the DWR go faster.

Two More

Because I somehow forgot to post these blocks when I finished them five days ago...

A couple more blocks checked off, and a few re-drawn in EQ7 so that I can print the foundations for paper-piecing and have the blocks come out the right direction. If I'd remembered that I had the HSTs sewn, but not trimmed for another, there might have been three block finishes in this post, but my memory failed.
 

#067 Pine Tree

Not entirely thrilled with particular block, but I'm going with it. That dark green triangle is kind of throwing me off.

#051 Hovering Birds

I'm really liking this plaid fabric as a background. I almost wish I'd bought a couple of yards of it now.

Saturday Block Attack

This weekend is pretty much a sewing weekend. Today is Stitch N' Bitch. Yesterday, Zeb was super cooperative and independent, and I got to sew my heart out.

#027 Darting Birds

This is actually my second attempt at this particular block. I wasn't as careful as I should have been in the cutting steps, so it was considerably less than stellar, and definitely not up to my standards. Much happier with his second attempt.

#044 Gentleman's Fancy

Since I did Economy with black fabric, I decided to use white as the neutral in this one. If I'd been thinking ahead a bit more, I'd have gone with something other than orange. It wasn't until I uploaded the photos of the blocks I did yesterday that I realized that most of them had orange in them. *facepalm*

#023 Country Farm

Paper-pieced because I didn't want to figure out the math for the QSTs. Nice and quick to go together.

#087 Star Gardener

More 1" finished HSTs. I'm very ready to be done with HSTs this small. Speaking of HSTs, I have a lot of leftover HSTs from this project. I've decided to save them in a baggie. When I fill the baggie, I'm going to piece a scrappy HST top from them.

#014 Butterfly at the Crossroads

Some fussy cutting and a really fun black and white print. I initially paper-pieced this block, but was less than thrilled with how it turned out. So, I started over.

I ended up adjusting the size of the pieces so that the five by five grid worked better on a six inch scale. The patches in the corner quadrants all finish at 1.25" square. The sashing units, however, I did at 1" wide, to account for the extra .05" added to the corner quadrant patches.

I'll likely be doing this for all of the 5 x 5 grid blocks from the book.

Still Chugging Along

Despite the head cold migrating into my throat, making me lose my voice, and then feeling a need to sleep most of the day away on the couch, I managed to get some sewing done yesterday. I cut the fabric for eight Farmer's Wife blocks, and managed to piece three.

#080 Single Wedding Star

The points on this one aren't perfect, but I'm thinking they're within acceptable margins for the OCD side of my personality.

 #095 Temperance Tree

Now that I've done a few of these blocks with so many tiny HSTs in them, I'm being very selective about fabrics. I'm making sure they're thinner cottons, so that bulk is decreased, even though I'm already ironing all seams open at this size.

#085 Square Dance

I put this block off until I found the right fabric, because it looked so boring. I think I hit on just the right fabric with this print. It's a Kate Spain fabric, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. This way, it looks more like a pretty tiling.

With these three blocks, I think I'm at 59 total. That means I'm over the halfway mark if I decide to only make the blocks in the book. At this point, however, I'm pretty sure I want to do a different setting, and it's going to require 122 blocks. So, really, I haven't hit the halfway mark yet. Almost, but not quite.

It's a good thing I have so many block resources to refer to!

Feeding a Cold with Some Sewing

This stupid cold has my nose raw and irritated. I keep forgetting that the human body can produce so much freaking snot - I have tissues stationed all around the house, because at any moment, my nose will run like a faucet.

So, in between keeping myself hydrated and popping anti-congestion pills, I've been piecing blocks. Mostly just re-dos, to replace all of the blocks that had cream in them, because my eye kept getting drawn to them, and I didn't like their lack of cohesion with the rest of the blocks.

#056 Maple Leaf

This was the only non-replacement block today. I decided to experiment with a plaid fabric in the background. I'm really pleased, especially against the contrast of the delicacy of the green paisley.

#026 Cut Glass Dish

I was never really happy with his particular block when I first made it. The fabrics I used were too heavy for the smaller HSTs, leading to some cut-off points that made my eye twitch. Plus, I just needed to use the citrus-y fabric again. It's a great print for fussy-cutting.

#004 Basket Weave

I like this block much better now that it's brighter. And I'm really liking orange and pink together.

#081 Snowball

This is the third time I've made this block now. I had to go back and re-do it. Why? That second time I used some of the oldest fabrics in my stash. Every time I look at it, my eye twitched. So, I changed it out.

So, not a ton of actual progress, but I feel better about the blocks that I have. The only block I have left to replace is Attic Windows.

Four More Down

More blocks for the Farmer's Wife Sampler are done. Tonight was an even split between regular piecing and paper-piecing. I might have finished more, but a good number of the paper-piecing templates on the Yahoogroup don't seem to have been reversed correctly. I'll have to redraw a number of the blocks in EQ7 to get good paper-piecing templates.

#055 Linoleum

This was regularly pieced, using all Connecting Threads fabrics. I really do love that company's products. Their fabrics are so buttery soft!

#102 Whirlpool

This would have been a much easier block, but I under-estimated the thickness of the white and blue fabric. Still, it turned out pretty well, and I like the play of of the different shades of blue. This one was also regularly pieced.

#029 Economy

Another do-over, and paper-pieced for accuracy. The center is fussy cut, while I let the outer triangles be what they wanted to be. Very easy, very quick. Just my speed tonight.

#039 Friendship

I'm not in love with my choice for the blue quadrant, but I'm leaving it. It's a rather large print for this block, but I've got to use it somewhere. At least in a sampler I'll be less likely to keep staring at it and growing more frustrated.

I'm hoping to get more blocks done later today, as I have no intention of hitting the gym. I have one helluva sinus cold that's making me a congested mouth-breather. For now, though, I'm off to try and be productive.

Busy-ness at Its Best

Yesterday was kind of long, and it was my own fault. I didn't get enough sleep Monday night, so I was a zombie at work all day. On top of that, once I was done working, I went to the gym (and boy! am I sore today!). I spent an hour and a half there, doing a full circuit on the weights and biking six miles.

I should have been thoroughly pooped at that point, and I was! Still, took the munchkin for dinner at McDonald's, because he'd reached the crabby-because-he-was-starving phase (you'd swear the kid never eats sometimes). He played and ate. I ate, and limited myself to the chicken sandwich and a few fries (pretty easy, because I've realized that I don't like McDonald's fries).

After that, it was a trip to the grocery store for soup for the hubby. Hubby has an abscessed tooth, and had to drive himself to work. That meant that he could take his antibiotics, but couldn't take the prescription pain reliever. Needless to say, he was a bit of a crab-apple at that point, so I volunteered to go get him some chicken soup.

Shopping trip done, we headed home. Kiddo fell asleep in the backseat (yay!), but woke up as I hefted him out and carried him upstairs (boo!). Still, he'd been pretty awesome and was incredibly love-y, so we watched some train videos before Mama put her (not so) big foot down and said he had to go to bed. Kiddo protested, but only because he wanted to sleep on the couch with Mama.

I'm a sucker, so we cuddled into Cheating on the Farmer's Wife, and we both passed out. About an hour later, hubby moved kiddo to his bed. Yes! We've gotten kiddo to sleep alone 90% of the time. It is AWESOME.

So anyway, I blinked crabbily (my turn!) at him for a bit, still wrapped up in Cheating on the Farmer's Wife, before I decided that I ought to do something with all that fabric that I had cut Monday evening. So, at around 11:30 PM, I flopped off the couch and made for the dining room, a portion of which has been carved out for my sewing space, now that we've managed to move most of kiddo's accoutrements into a bedroom for him. I'll take some photos once I'm done rearranging and decorating to my satisfaction.

#061 Northern Lights

Northern Lights is a do-over, in order to have this block conform with the overall color scheme of the rest of the blocks. I'm still not in love with it, and it's not the fabrics' fault. I just don't find it to be a very pleasing block, geometry-wise. It feels clunky and lopsided.

#062 Old Windmill

Try as I might, I don't see a windmill in this block. I see two whole pinwheels, and one fractured along the middle, but no windmill. Either way, super happy with my fabric choices. There needed to be a lot of contrast between the colors for this block to shine.

#068 Postage Stamp

This block is completely different from the layout presented in the book. In my head, a postage stamp quilt will always be as many different 1" finished squares as possible. So that's what I did. Eighteen of the patches are neutrals that have appeared in other blocks. The other eighteen were primarily out of the scrap basket.

I could see myself doing an entire quilt top like this.

Obviously, I didn't go to sleep for a while, but I'm okay with that. I have a feeling that tonight will be a rinse/repeat of yesterday, workout included. Hopefully, I can avoid the impromptu shopping trip though!

Still Chugging Along

Only a brief update today - I've been attempting to work on a hand applique project, but have had less success than I would like. I tried a new fusible product to cut the shapes out, and I'm less than pleased with the bulk it creates, and it only exacerbates the issue of the shapes not lying flat when the piece is laid out.

So, it's back to the drawing board, sort of. I'm going to try glue basting next, and switch to plastic templates to ease up on the bulk. I absolutely refuse to give up on this project. My stubborn mule side has kicked in.

In other news, I've completed two more Farmer's Wife blocks:

#070 Prairie Queen

I'm really liking the Happy Mochi Yum Yum line.. I might be tempted go look for more... On second thought, I need to work through my scraps before adding yardage.

#107 Windblown Square

Yes, I'm obsessed with that particular black and white fabric. And, yes, some of my new fabrics are totally making their way into these blocks.

I spent a good chunk of last evening cutting and prepping fabric for more blocks. Once I'm done with this batch, I'll only have those blocks that require paper-piecing or are on an awkward grid for a 6"-square block to do.

Back to the Farmer's Wife

Last night, I treated myself, since it was just me at home. Sushi, solitude and sewing! Well, not so much sewing, but cutting. Stitch N' Bitch was today, so I spent the evening cutting fabric so that I could just spend today piecing.

And piece I did!

#064 Peace and Plenty

I really need to vary up my grays in these blocks, but I love this particular gray and white print!

#089 Steps to the Altar

More new fabric. Lots of strip piecing.

#098 Water Wheel

This is one of the few white background blocks that I've done so far for the sampler. I need to make a few more to ensure that they don't look like holes in the top.

#103 Whirlwind

An ultra modern print combined with some fussy cutting and I'm happy!

#069 Practical Orchard

I really like the citrus-y fabric I used here, but I'm almost wishing I'd fussy cut those squares... I might yet go back and do that.

#091 Strawberry Basket

Very similar in construction to Steps to the Altar, so I cranked this one out. I'm really digging the mustard and the raspberry color together.

So, now I'm forty-five blocks in. A few more white background blocks, because I need more blocks that are brighter. There a good range of medium value blocks to dark blocks, so that's good. I'll probably end up re-making the Basket Weave block again, because I don't like the cream in it. Same with Attic Window. I want this quilt to be crisp.

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.