I'm a Farmer's Wife!

I'm officially a farmer's wife:

The Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-Long has been wandering out the sewing blogosphere all summer and had piqued my interest, but I've got to admit I was pretty turned off by the historic fabrics and colors.  Don't get me wrong, I think traditional quilting is gorgeous and the reproduction fabrics are really amazing, but it's just not my style (not that's I've been doing this long enough to have a definitive style- 1 month- but I'm definitely attracted to modern fabrics, styles, and colors).

Then I found the flickr group and saw how well modern fabrics blend with the traditional quilt blocks and I was hooked!   I know this is a pretty ambitious project for a beginning quilter, but I've always been a jump into the deep in kind of girl anyway.   I've already learned a lot just this week!  For instance-- half square triangles-- who knew that you had to cut the triangles larger than the template for them to fit?  Not me!  Luckily, Lori Holt to the rescue with her fabulous tutorial!  I have a feeling I'll be referencing her other tutorials before this project is over. 


Another handy tip I learned from Lori: design boards!  

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These are a definite must-have for any project with intricate blocks and were so easy to make:  foam board, scrap batting, and fabric strips.   Add hot glue and you're organized and ready to sew!  (tutorial here).  These will come in hand for a while.


Now, without further ado, the five blocks I made this week:

#16 Calico Puzzle

#21 Contrary Wife

#71 Puss in the Corner

I will probably remake this one-- the corners don't quite line up and I'm not in love with the busy-ness of the corners-- they blend in with the pink dot DS Quilts fabric.

#81 Snowball

I am going to remake this one-- I like the fabrics, but I messed up the top-- I want the corner stripes to be turned opposite and that didn't happen.  Need to pay better attention to that when I'm sewing... like I did with....

#84 Spool

I modified my "spool"-- I wanted thread on it.   I like the way this one turned out.   I especially like the way the "Hometown" fabric looks as the body of the spool.

I'll be keeping up my progress over in the side bar. 

This week's stats:

Completed: design boards

Moving Along:   

• Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along: 5 down... 106 to go.
• Baby A's Quilt: cut out and ready to be sewn

No progress: Baby G's Quilt

In the queue:

• Christmas Quilt
• Baby B's blankets
• Hope Valley quilt
• Sewing Room accessories: sewing machine cover, string catcher, clip boards, quilt/design boards, embroidery bag
  
  
  Completed projects - 1
  Currently in progress - 10
  
  

Now head on over to Freshly Pieced and see what everyone else is up to!