Complete with binding...

A few months ago Ron asked me when I was going to finish a quilt for our bed.  I quilt alot of quilts for friends, but when it comes to mine, I can't make up my mind how I am going to design my quilting, so I put off doing them.  Well, I decided to bite the bullet and put my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt on the frame and get it done. 

I put it on the frame last week, thinking it would go quickly.  I had put so much time in the piecing of the quilt that I didn't want to short change on the quilting.  I added some special touches here and there.  We were gone for a couple days and lots of things going on, so it wasn't until today that I finally got it done. Boston was the first one to try it out.

One step away from new quilt on bed

 

I have worked on this Farmers' Wife Sampler quilt for a very long time.  I started it back in July and finished the number of blocks I needed for the layout I chose by the end of December.  The first two months of this year have been very busy, so getting the blocks put together with the other elements that compose the top has been a challenge.  I think I finished the flying geese units in one week's time though... that's what happens when you get close to the end of a project.   The flying geese units were paper pieced, as were all the blocks.  The flying geese units consisted of 6 geese and each unit was 9" long.  I don't know how I did it, but I did not have to adjust the size of any of the geese to get the borders to turn out right.  It required 40 units for the border.  I would shudder to think how long it would take to complete 240 flying geese by any other method.

Today I was able to display my finished quilt on a new pulley system we set up between the garage and the house which enables me to hang a whole quilt and be able to back up enough to get the complete picture.  Of course the wind was blowing today, and the sun was causing a shadow of the garage roof line, but I like how the pictures turned out.  There is a metal pole that is attached to the pulley ropes on both sides and I made a sleeve that I can slide onto the pole and pin the quilt to the sleeve and pull it up into position.  Of course this quilt is quite large compared to the size of most of the quilts I will be taking pictures of, but it did require some thought on how to get it hung to show the whole quilt.  This quilt has the ropes pulled up to their limit, and I doubt I will need to hang a larger quilt... at least not any time soon.

This is a close up of one border edge.  I know I have posted other pictures, but I did not have the last outside strip to finish off the flying geese border.  My original plan did not include flying geese, but after auditioning a short strip next to the finished center, I knew that I had found the right border for this quilt.  In case it is not clear, the sky part of the flying geese is the same fabric as I used for the setting triangles.  The fabric for the sashing strips and the red framing borders on the blocks both have a gold thread weaving through the design.  This definitely takes it out of the 1920 time frame that the FWS book was designed around... but that's OK, I love the way all the fabric choices work together.

It has been a long project.  I did not work on it continuously, but I tried to get two or three blocks done each time I sat down to work on it.  The actual Famers' Wife Sampler blocks only number 63 in this quilt.  In the layouts in the book, most use all 111 blocks.  I like how the blocks stand out more as individuals with setting triangles between instead of another block.  It has a different effect, and may not qualify as an official Farmers' Wife Sampler because I did not include all 111 blocks, and I chose a totally different layout.

My next challenge is to get this quilt on the frame and decide how I will quilt it.

Half square triangles again

For those of you who are not members of TheQuiltShow.com, there was a recent episode on the online show featuring Edyta Sitar, and there was also an article about Edyta and her Half Square Triangles (HST)  in the January/February edition of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine. On TheQuiltShow.com episode I was impressed with how easy she demonstrated  it is to make HSTs using her paper piecing method.  Now the paper piecing method she demonstrated is not new, there have been various templates out there for a long time... Edyta just brought it to the forefront and everyone's immediate attention.  The concept of doing an exchange was also suggested by Edyta, which in turn kicked off two online exchanges that were started very soon after her show first viewed on TheQuiltShow.com.  There may be more exchanges since then, but I got in on the second one.  I was busy and didn't read the forum posts on the first one and missed the deadline to enter.  That first exchange had about 700 people participating I think. I can't imagine having 700 different HSTs.  I did make it into the second one, which was using Batiks and I am anxiously awaiting my 137 HSTs to arrive.  The concept of this exchange is, you send in 137 HSTs that can all be the same and you get 137 different HSTs back from around the world.

I spoke about being busy and missing the first deadline... I have to learn to pay attention, even when I am going in too many directions at the same time.  I'm usually pretty good at that, but sometimes you just miss some good stuff because you are too busy to stop and look around.  The current week is one of those weeks that just does not have enough days.  I haven't over-scheduled myself, but I surely have maxed out the time I do have available.

One of my projects that I have been working on since last July is my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt.  I am not finishing mine in the same manner as the book describes... that would make it look too much like everyone else that is making one of these quilts.  My "on point" layout only used 63 of the 111 blocks that are in the book.  I guess that is cutting it short, but I really like the looks of what I have in progress.  I didn't do the math exactly right and thought I would have 8 columns of blocks, each with 9 blocks, but after I added the 7th column, I layed the two sections I had on the bed and knew that I could not add the 8th column because I wanted to add a border.  I had not decided on just how I would do the border, but it was already big with just the 7 columns.  Had I known, I would have switched to use some of the blocks that were supposed to be in my 8th column... they were some of the nicest ones.

I asked my husband for his opinion on some fabric I was auditioning for the border and he didn't like any of the fabric I was trying out.  He said nothing I had shown him did the quilt justice.  He is well aware of all the time it has taken me to put all those blocks together.  He suggested that I "sleep on it" before I took the jump and made the wrong decision.  I was leafing through a quilt magazine and it jumped out at me... Flying Geese!  When I saw it, I knew that it was just what my quilt needed.  I presented my discovery to my husband and he totally agreed that it would be a good choice.

I started making my flying geese strips last week.  I am using a paper piecing template that makes 9" strips with 6 flying geese on each 3" wide strip .  They go together pretty quick, but I want to tell you it takes lots of little pieces of fabric to make the number of geese I will need.  I think I have completed 26 of the 40 strips I will need.  I am going to have a 5" border when I am done... a one inch strip on each side of the 3" wide flying geese.  Yesterday I put the inside 1" border all the way around so I could put one side border of the flying geese on to determine just how many I really will need... also to get a clearer picture of how it will look.  I have enough done to complete the other side, but I am going to go back to completing the 9" strips before I put any more of the borders together.

When I took the pictures I only have the inside green border attached, but as I folded it up to walk back to my sewing room the green from the other side of the quilt looked like it was the outside border of the flying geese edge... so it gave me an even more clear idea of how happy I am with my border choice.

 

By the time I have this quilt finished... which will be soon, I will have a really neat quilt and hopefully have a better way to hang up a quilt for pictures so I can take a good picture of the whole quilt.  When I say soon, I mean that I have it on my current to-do list, but I will not get much time for the remainder of this week, so it could be a couple of weeks.  I want to get it on our bed, so once I have the borders on, I want to have my quilt frame available to put this quilt on and get it done.

Finished the blocks for my FWS

I have been busy during the last few weeks trying to get my Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks done so that I can start putting it together.  First of all I am not finishing all of the 111 blocks from the book... at least not for this quilt.  The layout I am going to use is not the traditional one that the book illustrates.  The blocks are on point, but they are in columns with sashing separating these columns.  There are 9 blocks in a column and there will be 8 columns, which comes out to 72 blocks... I actually completed 77 blocks.

I am going to make a big effort to finish this one in a timely manner, now that I have enough blocks done.  The last 8 that I worked on are below.

My big scare after I finished the first column was that I would not have enough of the red I chose for the trim around the blocks.  It looked like I had alot of the red, but as I was cutting and getting all the sets done, I think I have about 8 of the 6 1/2" strips left.  That was close, but I had not planned on using the red or even trimming around the blocks.  When I auditioned fabric from my stash that I thought I had enough of, the red really looked best from what I had, and I was sure there was more than plenty.  I made it, but it wasn't by much.

Farmer's Wife Sampler

I still have a few more blocks to go, but I think I'm making pretty good progress on my Farmer's Wife Sampler.  I now have 66 official blocks done.  There are three additional blocks on the far end of the design wall that are extras.  One is from the SBS book, one really was not as square as I wanted it, and the third one I made way back when I started and used my HST template just guessing at the size.  When I finished the block, it was way smaller than it was supposed to be... I used the wrong size HST template.  The book didn't tell me to do it that way, I just thought it looked about that size.  I added more HST's to make it be the right size, but it would not be an official FWS block... so it is an extra for now.

A closer look at the last four blocks I completed.  As I have mentioned before, I converted to paper piecing early in this project... but even with paper piecing, sometimes you run into a challenge.  The Darting Bird 27 block had lots of units and after I got all the units sewn, I could not figure how to put the jigsaw puzzle together, so I had to go to my computer and look at the layout in EQ.  Most of the blocks are intuitive to figure out how the units fit together... not so on this one.

I have a quilt on my frame that I am quilting for a friend.  I think it is a quilt for her granddaughter, so I wanted to find some nice girly pattern.  After I got the quilt loaded and looked at my pantographs, nothing seemed to speak to me, so I came back in the house and designed a "daisy" pantograph.  I had other flowers, but they were too busy for this little girl quilt.  I think the daisies are going to look nice.  It is predominantly pink on the quilt side and she is using a solid white backing.  She wanted variegated pink thread... so that meant it had to be a nice pattern cause it is really going to show on the backside of this quilt.  I have it about half quilted already, but may be a couple days before I can get back to it.

Busy time in South Texas

It has been a week since the Once a Year Holiday Market, and I am very happy that it happens only Once a Year.  The two setup evenings are very labor intensive.  We have a small space to put alot of fixtures and tables.  For starters, the walls are covered to make the customers feel like they are in a little gift shop.

Although we each have a designated area, our items can be placed around the shop with like themed items. There was a big variety of handcrafted items from edibles in the kitchen area, a kidz korner, lots of jewelry, paintings, quilts and sewn items, all the way to a blacksmith's creations.

One of the perks you get from being at a show is you get to meet lots of new interesting people... at least the first time anyhow.  They all have their own talents.  Sometimes they do things you couldn't begin to create yourself, but sometimes you can discover something you didn't know existed before.  One of those was Chili Pequin Jelly.  Now I would never in 100 years think of buying a jar of Chili Pequin Jelly.  For those of you who are not from South Texas, Chili Pequins are among the hottest peppers you want to encounter. 
They can hurt you really bad.  One of the ladies had to bring in an open jar for the workers to try in the kitchen.  If you take a jar of hot pepper jelly and pour it over a block of cream cheese, then spread it on crackers, you will experience an awesome treat... and outside of a little kick, you would never guess how great a treat it could be... made with chili pequins.  I actually made a batch of jelly this afternoon, and upon testing it... you can tell that peppers are in it, but the heat level is very minimal.  My husband who does not do hot in any shape or size, took a taste at my prompting and was pleasantly surprised.

 

I have not made jelly for many years.  I have not lost my touch.  Chili Pequins are so hot that this batch of jelly only used 8 of those pea sized pequins.  The pequins are red when they are ripe, but the red color comes mostly from the 4 red bell peppers.  I have 9 jars of jelly, and the little bit that was left that I put in a small bowl jelled very nicely, so I'm confident that they will all be set up nicely.

Yesterday my husband asked me if I was going to put the blocks from my Farmer's Wife Sampler back up on the design wall.  I took them all down while I was finishing up some items for OAY, so when I loaded up everything I was taking to the show, the wall became very empty.  No color to brighten the blank wall.  It has been nearly two months since I added any new blocks to the 58 that I had complete before I started my final crunch for the show.  So I put all the blocks I had completed back on the wall.  With 111 the final goal, 58 done means I have a bit further to go.  I sat down and got 4 new blocks sewn in one afternoon.  My biggest challenge with these blocks sometimes is picking out the right fabric to do each block.  I have lots of fabric in my stash... too many choices. 

I thought I would take the time to post some new pictures.  It has been a while since I have had the time to put together anything decent out here.  Hope you enjoyed today's post.

Farmer's Wife Sampler is progressing

 As you could see in my last post, I have been working on the blocks for my Farmer's Wife Sampler.  I'm trying to keep my momentum going so it doesn't get pushed into my unfinished category.  There really is alot going on, but it seems I can usually finish a block or two now and then.  Right now I think I am up to 55 blocks done.   My latest three...

 

I have been enjoying the challenge of making each block unique, totally random from my scrap/stash.  I am not following any particular rule regarding my selection of the pieces.  Each block is an individual palette... I look at the block in the book and go to my scrap/stash to find some pieces that will work together for that specific block.  I made a decision on how I am going to put my blocks together.  I got my inspiration from a layout posted on the Yahoo Group for FWS.  The standard layout has the blocks on point and separated by very narrow strips of sashing.  The layout I am aiming for is in columns of on-point blocks with setting triangles.  The sashing between the columns is a floral border print.  I have not decided on the outside borders yet. I do know that I will not be using all 111 blocks in one quilt.  My current plan is to use only 70 in a queen size layout.  I do hope to finish all 111 blocks, with the second quilt probably being a lap quilt or something similar.

I want to point out that I would not have as many blocks done if I had not bought the CD that loads into my EQ6. It offers a bit more diversity in how to approach this project. I am using all foundation piecing.  I am convinced that there is no other way to do this without losing my mind.  Paper piecing not only helps with the speed of completing the blocks, but also ensures a much more accurate finished block.

September is almost half gone

It really has been very busy around here... but what's new?  I have not been able to take the time to post anything new here in a while.  Last week we had some excitement on the weather front here in south Texas.  We were getting quite dry and really needing some rain... well we  had rain for a few days in a row, and I think it started Tuesday with a storm that was about as windy as I have seen it here... it took down a tree in the yard next door, and another one in our backyard.  The tree next door was quite a large tree, and it was hollow.

The tree in our back yard was a younger tree, although still pretty good size and quite green, but the soil here is mostly sand and this tree came up by the roots.  There was flooding as close as San Antonio.  I-35 up towards Dallas was closed in both directions for a while on Wednesday I think... due to flooding.  We are somewhat on a hill, so flooding typically is not a concern for us here at our house.

On the quilting front I have been doing some quilting for friends and trying to get some blocks done for my Farmer's Wife Sampler.  I think I am up to 39 blocks now.  I actually have done many more than that, but 39 which can be used as true FWS blocks.  This is a clip from my design board that is dominated by these 6 " blocks.

I joined a group on Yahoo for the Farmer's Wife Sampler that keeps me focused on getting these blocks done.  The group posts a new block each week, which is not in the same order as in the book.  With 111 blocks, if you only do one block a week, it would take more than two years before you would have all the blocks done and able to put together your quilt.  The group started last October, so it is realistic for me to make an effort to catch up.  Many of my UFOs do not have a target date for completion, so they get pushed aside when something new comes along, so having a target to aim for is very helpful.  I'm impressed with how well my blocks are coming along.  I'm doing them by paper piecing and that seems to give me a consistently good result.

Have a good week!

July, where did it go?

The weather outside surely lets you know that we are in the middle of summer.  We have been trying to get out to Colorado to our cabin for several weeks now.  The cool temperatures that we find at 10,000 feet is quite refreshing after you have experienced all the heat that we have here.  We potentially will head out there this week... we shall see if we make it this time.

It's been a while since I posted here, but sometimes things get busy, and before you know it a couple weeks have gone by.  We had company with us on our last Friday "lunch out day".  We have friends that had heard about the Huisache Grill in New Braunfels, but they had never been there.  The atmosphere and food is great, so any excuse to go back was welcome.  This picture is the garden path that leads to the back entrance to Huisache.

I have finished my first I-Spy quilt, but that was more than a week ago, so I thought it was time to put something new out there for those who might visit now and then to see if anything new is going on.  I bought the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book and have started at block one and I am working my way through.  I already have 15 done... that is 15 that count as real blocks.  I made one using the wrong size HST so I had to add several more to make it come out to the right size.  I actually like it more than the real one.  The other block is from the book Sylvia's Bridal Sampler.  All of the blocks are the same size, and I am not going to enter any competition with it, so I am going to forge ahead and keep the strays that wander in.

 

I'm using all scrap fabric... somehow at this rate I can't see my stash going down very quickly.  I'm not being fussy about the colors, just trying to stay away from "too bright".  The two on the left are the orphans.

I will likely not have a new post here for a couple weeks... the connection at the cabin is super slow at best. Have a good week, and stay cool.