Finished! Well ... The blocks, anyway

A lot of blocks. A lot of improvement in my piecing skills. I went 1 day over my goal of finishing all my blocks in 2010. Can't wait for the sashing fabric to arrive in the mail!!!

 

1. #01 - Attic Window, 2. #02 - Autumn Tints, 3. #03 - Basket, 4. #04 - Basket Weave, 5. #05 - Bat Wing, 6. #06 - Big Dipper, 7. #07 - Birds In The Air, 8. #08 - Bouquet, 9. #09 - Box, 10. #10 - Bowtie, 11. #11 - Broken Dishes, 12. #12 - Broken Sugar Bowl, 13. #13 - Buckwheat, 14. #14 - Butterfly at the Crossroads, 15. #15 - Buzzard's Roost., 16. #16 - Calico Puzzle, 17. #17 - Cats & Mice, 18. #18 - Century of Progress, 19. #19 - Checkerboard, 20. #20 - Churn Dash, 21. #21 - Contrary Wife, 22. #22 - Corn & Beans, 23. #23 - Country Farm, 24. #24 - Country Path, 25. #25 - Cups & Saucers, 26. #26 - Cut glass dish., 27. #27 - Darting Birds, 28. #28 - Duck & Ducklings, 29. #29 - Economy, 30. #30 - End of Day, 31. #31 - Evening Star, 32. #32 - Farmer's Daughter, 33. #33 - Farmer's Puzzle, 34. #34 - Flock, 35. #35 - Flower Basket, 36. #36 - Flower Garden Path 37. #37 - Flower Pot, 38. #38 - Four Winds, 39. #39 - Friendship, 40. #40 - Friendship Block, 41. #41 - Friendship Star, 42. #42 - Fruit Basket, 43. #43- Garden Path, 44. #44 - Gentleman's Fancy, 45. #45 - Grape Basket, 46. #46 - Hill & Valley, 47. #47 - Homemaker, 48. #48 - Homeward Bound, 49. #49 - Honeycomb, 50. #50 - Honey's Choice, 51. #51 - Hovering Birds, 52. #52 - Hovering Hawks, 53. #53 - Jackknife, 54. #54 - Kitchen Woodbox, 55. #55 - Linoleum, 56. #56 - Maple Leaf, 57. #57 - Morning, 58. #58 - Mother's Dream, 59. #59 - Night & Day, 60. #60 - Noon & Light, 61. #61 - Northern Lights, 62. #62 - Old Windmill, 63. #63 - Ozark Maple Leaf, 64. #64- Peace & Plenty, 65. #65 Peaceful Hours, 66. #66 - Periwinkle, 67. #67 - Pine Tree, 68. #68 - Postage Stamp, 69. #69 - Practical Orchard, 70. #70 - Prairie Queen, 71. #71 - Puss in the Corner, 72. #72 - Railroad

 

Quilting Around The World!

I recently found a very cool place to hang out and talk all things quilting. The lovely ladies over at QATW are super swappers, extremely helpful, and a tonne of fun to be with! Best of all is that you are continually motivated to work on your projects (and to start new ones).

Over the American Thanksgiving weekend I put together my very first set of blocks for one of their swaps - and I have to say it was a lot of fun. I noticed that I cut and pieced MUCH more carefully than I normally would. I'm pretty sure that is a good habit to cultivate!

Here are the swap blocks for Scraptastic that I put together:

They look so pretty and scrappy on my wall I can't wait to mail and swap and see what I get back!

40 Through 48

This week's progress

1. #39 - Friendship, 2. #38 - Four Winds, 3. #37 - Flower Pot, 4. #36 - Flower Garden Path, 5. #35 - Flower Basket, 6. #34 - Flock, 7. #33 - Farmer's Puzzle, 8. #32 - Farmer's Daughter

Another handful done!

1. #30 - End of Day, 2. #29 - Economy, 3. #28 - Duck & Ducklings, 4. #08 - Bouquet, 5. #27 - Darting Birds, 6. #25 - Cups & Saucers, 7. #24 - Country Path, 8. #22 - Corn & Beans, 9. #23 - Country Farm


Still having a lot of fun making these blocks! I'm getting much better at the technical aspect of piecing (I think?) and I'm also beginning to really enjoy picking fabrics and colours for each block -- Digging through my stash of scraps, yardage, charm packs, and other pre-cuts has become like a miniature treasure hunt each time I turn a page!

Farmer's Wife Quilt - A few blocks finished!

Working my way through the blocks in Laurie Aaron Hird's book "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt" seems to be as close to taking a quilting class as I can get and still wear pajamas! So for the last few days that is exactly what I have been doing.

Let's try this one ..

The book comes with a disk that includes PDF files for each of the 107 templates used in the blocks -- a separate PDF for each?! Now I'm no publisher but you would think that someone in the disk-making-department would use a bit more common sense. Because no quilter in her right mind is going to want to print 107 pages, especially when some of the templates are 2 1/2 inch blocks or 3 inch triangles. I think they really let the author down on that aspect. I'd scream bloody murder if I put all that time and energy into writing a book and the disk included looked like a 7th grader's geometry project.
 
{Of course, the publishers & EQ seem to be angling for some extra cash since there is an EQ companion CD you can buy separately. No wonder they put no effort into the free disk!}

Luckily the ones who have gone before me in making this quilt were of like minds, and they rearranged all the templates into a single PDF file of 14 pages. I thought "Woohoo, this I can live with!" and downloaded that baby right away.Then I set to work with my ruler and worked out measurements for quite a few of the simple shapes - even down to 16ths in some cases. Cause there is nooooooo way I am cutting & piecing twenty or more one-inch HSTs the hard way just for one block:

Tiny HSTs .. no problem! Chain em up

The project is definitely helping with my piecing skills (as intended!) I'm primarily working from scraps/stash fabric, so right now the blocks I have made don't look like they will play nice together in a quilt ... But I'll figure something out at the end!

Day 1 Blocks - Err, nice effort but I will remake some of these!

Day 2 Blocks - Now we are getting somewhere!

*Marking the name and number of each of the blocks on a square of masking tape might be a little over-organized, but ... I like it that way :)

I love Fusing

I proudly present reverse engineering at it's finest!

This is my version of "Amish Spring Roses", which I 'made' from a picture I posted about earlier. I sketched my own templates (7 shapes in all), made a layout on a huge piece of freezer paper so the rose blocks wouldn't be wonky, and searched high and low for proper red fabrics to use.

Dark - Quilter's Choice Marbles
Medium - Quilter's Choice Marbles
Light - Hoffman Silent Inspirations

and 9 blocks of plain white at 18 1/2 inches square.

Of course in the swatches online and in this picture it is difficult to truly appreciate the colour -- especially the glorious reds!

Armed with a roll of fusible webbing, a pencil, an iron, and my templates I started snipping and sticking my blocks together. Each rose is layered with the sepals (green leaves below the first petals), small petals, and large petals overlapping slightly. Today I will work on appliqueing each block with colour matching threads.

The 9 blocks shown in the picture are sized to lay exactly across the center portion of a double bed. with panels to the sides and also at top and bottom. The only other panel that will contain applique will be the 'pillow' panel, and the other three will consist of traditional Amish quilt motifs (done by machine however!) I can't wait to get started on the quilting :)