Farmer's Wife - catch-up

The QAL is in hiatus until the end of this month, beginning of February, at which point we should be at week 28 - 56 blocks in total.  Well, I'm not quite there, but so far this month, I've managed to put this little collection together.

It should seem obvious, but every time I work on these petite 6" blocks, I'm always amazed at the amount of time suck involved in the creation of each block.  However slow going, there is something rewarding with figuring out how to piece some fairly intricate pieces.  I actually went back to paper piecing for the last couple of blocks, #42 Fruit Basket and #43 Garden Path.  The templates were really odd in between sizes and I wanted the accuracy of PP.

Here's the rundown:

The Y seam gave me a bit of trouble that I think can be smoothed out with quilting.

I really love the combo of fabrics on this one but the perfectionist in me hates the fact I didn't notice and correct the missed point on the dark pinwheel.

It's fun experimenting with different techniques on these blocks.  I pressed my seams open to reduce bulk but the trade off is that it makes it much harder to match seams.

More "Y" seams but I think it came out okay.

*****

More Farmer's Wife inspiration can be find by checking out the QAL group on flickr.

A Fresh Start

A New Year calls for cleaning out the old and seeing things with fresh eyes.  In that spirit, I spent several hours over last weekend in my sewing room (well, my bedroom) cleaning and organizing my workspace.  A little sadly but with some anticipation, I took down my Farmer's Wife block display of 30+ blocks (hovering over the bed!).

After the decks were cleared, I got down to business.  Here's two new FW blocks taped on the wall by my bed.  These blocks look a little lonely all by themselves on a stretch of white wall!

The flower basket block was a quick and easy one, even with the hand applique on the handle.  I didn't use the template -- I cut a strip of fabric on the bias about 1/2" wider than finished size and folded and pressed the sides in, then shaped and pinned the handle onto the background fabric.  A little spray of starch helped it lie flat.

The Garden Path block was a little more time consuming due to all the small pieces.  I used my easy triangle ruler to measure the printed templates.  I find this easier than trying to trace on the fabric around the templates.




I'm  also making progress on "Liberty Fields" from Material Obsession I, assembling the body of the quilt.

I took this shot to document the placement of the blocks so I would have something to refer to as I sew this together.  I now have all of the blocks joined but have yet to sew them to the strips of HST's.  Let me tell you, this quilt has turned out to be WAY more work than I anticipated.  I was so thrilled to finally be able to lay it all out to see what it's ultimately going to look like!

See the toes and cord at the top of the photo?  That's my son playing his X-box game!  We were competing for floor space.  Ha ha!

I'm also am making progress on quilting feathers on my triangles quilt.   Here's my warm-up piece.   I used some really old fabric and scrap batting.  The very first quilted feathers I ended up hating and am in the process of pulling out.  It's horribly tedious ... I have only a few more rows to go but it's taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r!  The quilting itself is quick and easy so I need to stuck with it so I can finally finish this quilt. 


I also need to find the right fabric to make the binding.  I'm thinking a B&W stripe or dots would work well.  Any suggestions?   Here's an older picture of the quilt top:

The backing is solid aqua.


****


I feel re-energized by doing some very simple cleaning and organizing.  How about you?  Anyone else starting out "fresh" with the new year?


---Claudia

Happy New Year

I didn't intend to be take such a long blog break, but with work and the crazy run up to the holidays and then taking time off to be with the kids - I needed some time to recharge my batteries.

Getting ready for the new year, I couldn't resist picking up some new fabrics.

Axel had to get in the shot

These are from Peapod Fabrics, a wonderful little independent fabric store in town.  I also order the  blues pictured below via the 'net about a month ago.

More pretty blues

Lately, I've been really digging indigo blues and yellow-golds.  I decided to make a very good friend a quilt in this color scheme (she has been dropping hints that she wants a quilt).  She also told me she likes blue, but then today she mentioned she wanted to get rid of the blues in her bedroom and go with green and rust!  Now I'm not sure what to do ...

I have been steadily working on the star quilt (see last post) but it's still all in pieces so no new pictures to share.  This has been the year of the "WIP", with only a couple of small completed quilts to brag about.  Mainly, the work I've put into my Farmer's Wife sampler has left little time for other projects.  I miss that sense of completion, but I also need to remind myself to be patient.  It's all about the process;  I could easily have pumped out several "easy" quilts with large piecing and minimal quilting if I  wanted to.  But I've enjoyed learning new techniques and working at a slower pace this year.  

I'm also thinking of moving in a different direction in this new year.  In October, I took a landscape quilting class with Kathy McNeil that made me think differently about the craft of quilting.  I like the idea of using fabric as a tool (like paint) instead of the emphasis on sewing with designer fabric names and reproducing popular quilting designs. 

Wishing everyone health and happiness in the New Year!

My daughter sunbathing in Golden Gate Park
December 28, 2011

Stars

Sorry, it's been a while since I've updated my blog.  Life has been good, and busy!  I managed to fit in some sewing over the long weekend.  I ran out of quilting thread for my triangle quilt (see previous post) and had a really hard time locating the exact YLI thread I need to finish up this quilt.  I finally found an online source for both threads (I'm using two different colors) and am waiting for my order to arrive.

Meanwhile, I used the break as excuse to embark on a new quilting project.

The pattern, which is from the first Material Obsession book, calls for 34 Ohio stars.  Each one is made from a different print from my stash. 

Just when I was getting thoroughly sick and tired of making so many stars I moved on to the the next step which involves joining stars to make 8 sets of flower bunches and embellishing them with embroidery stems and hand applique leaves.  I'm enjoying this step as I can work on the couch and the stitching and the leaves are fairly large and not too fussy.

I also made myself a new coaster.

I'm pretty happy with it, but how it holds up, only time will tell.  I find that my home sewn kitchenwares made with quilting-weight cotton tend to be on the flimsy side.  I like my potholders to be thick and sturdy and able to withstand high heat.  I always add a layer thermal treated fabric in with two layers of batting, which I also used here, but this time I used a waffle-weave cotton towel for the backing.

 I'm hoping this will add the "heft" I'm looking for.

I think it looks pretty "snazzy" with my french press.

Here's my daughter on Thanksgiving, snuggling with my sister's newest dog.  He's 4 pounds (full-grown) of cute!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.