Back on the farm...

 

Yes I have finally gotten back to sewing some more of my Farmers Wife blocks after a few months break. My original goal was to complete 5 blocks a week so hopefully I will get back into doing that more regularly now. These are blocks 21 - 25. 

 

Blocks 21 & 23 (Contrary wife & Country farm) 

 

Blocks 22 & 25 (Corn & beans and Cups & Saucers)  were the challenging blocks with those teeny tiny triangles. 

And the last one is Block 24 - Country path. Really pleased with how this one turned out. You will notice some stitching lines on the outside edge of the little triangles. This is because I originally sewed the wrong sides of the 2 triangles together making squares and not a larger triangle, oops!

If you are also making a Farmers wife quilt Camille has shared her process here of how she puts together her blocks. I followed her instructions for cutting out when doing this last block (above) but when I had trouble with the templates moving under my ruler I had the idea of putting a little double sided tape on the underside of the template which worked perfectly. Just 86 more blocks to go......

Farmers wife - weeks 2 & 3

 

So after promising myself that I would make 5 blocks per week I fell off the wagon at week 2 but have since been beavering away to complete 10 blocks to make up for it. I actually completed an extra one so am ahead now for next week. I'm not sure what happened on week 2 but other things seemed to get in the way of any sewing that week. It is quite a task to print out the templates, mount them on cardboard, cut them out, then decide on fabric choices, cut out fabric and sew. I wish I wasn't so indecisive when it comes to fabric choices for each block but I do tend to weigh each choice up rather than just going with my gut instinct. I'm working on that personality flaw :-)

Block 6 - Big Dipper - easy fabric choice here and easy to piece too.

 

Hmmmm this is block 7 - Birds in the air - like this block design and my fabric choices but it did not go together well at all and am sort of  embarrassed to even put it up on my blog but I'm endeavouring to keep it real here by showing it. The problem I think is my seam allowance which was less than 1/4 inch by a smidgen and of course that made all the difference when piecing those tiny triangles. I think I will have to start again with fresh fabric pieces.

 

Block 8 - Bouquet - Love this block and it went together beautifully after adjusting my seam allowance.

 

Block 9 - Box - Not sure about this block design, like it, but don't love it....

 

Block 10 - Bowtie - Easy block to put together and really like this one.

 

Block 11 - Broken dishes -  Once again went together well despite all those triangles. Thank goodness I had my seam allowance sorted.

 

Block 12 - Broken Sugar bowl - love the striped print in this block.

 

Block 13 - Buckwheat - Really love how this block turned out.

 

Block 14 - Butterfly at the crossroads - Isn't this a great name for a block!

And finally Block 15 - Buzzard's Roost - Just love the shade of green in this print, actually really love that print.

So that's what I've been working on these past few days, a farmers wife marathon of sorts :-) Like most of the North Island we have been having lots of  rain this week and more to come I think which is good as it makes me want to sew. Today I have managed to fit in a run between showers and once this post is done I will be cutting out this weeks Farmers wife blocks and some fabrics I've pulled to go with those beautiful tea-towels I posted about here. 

How's you week coming along??

Good things take time....

My first 5 Farmers Wife sampler blocks! These blocks take longer to cut out than sew up I think but I did enjoy the whole process of choosing just the right colour and print combinations to the actual sewing. I was a little concerned the larger prints wouldn't be suited to the smaller pieces as each block is only 6 1/2 inches square which makes for very small triangles and squares etc but I'm quite happy with them so far. I've decided that I will do 5 blocks each week which means this will take me about 4 months to complete. Good things take time you know :-)

And this is my other slow project for this year which I started in the middle of last year with Penny's quilt along @ Sewtakeahike. I'm in no hurry to finish this project. So far I have done 414 and I think I might just go for the goal of 1000. Making yo-yo's is quite a nice quiet activity that I can take anywhere. I've even taken some to do at one of my Mothers hospital appointments where an elderly gentleman took great interest in what I was doing and what the end product was going to look like. 

I did a few on camp the other week and have been doing a few each night since, so slowly but surely I will get there and once again 'good things take time'.