Sunday, October 30, 2011

Farmer's Wife Quilt

My Grandma's 90th Birthday is November 1st, and I wanted to do something really special for her.  She has been one of my favorite people for a long time -- she used to fix the holes in my worn out teddy bear, over and over.  She always choose the Old Maid card that my brother and I wanted to get rid of.  And I still wish that she could make me a peanut butter sandwich every night for a bedtime snack, like she used to do when I slept over at her house.
She makes the best peanut butter sandwiches, ever.

When my Grandpa turned 90 years old a couple of years ago,
my brother and cousins presented him with 90 bottles of beer.
You should have seen the huge smile!
So I wanted to do something equally amazing,
and maybe even better, for Grandma.
So here it is . . . . 90 quilt squares!

After I read about the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along starting up,
I knew that this group of blocks would be perfect.
My Grandma wasn't a Farmer's Wife, but she was a farmer's daughter!
I started making the blocks this past summer, but quickly realized that I would need (LOTS) of help if I was going to finish it in time.

So I invited my mom, aunt, and uncle over for some quilting parties!
They're not technically quilters, but my mom and aunt have done some sewing, and my uncle is a mathematician & painter, with a good eye for design and color.
We spent most of our Tuesdays together for the past 2 months -- they'd arrive right after I dropped the kids off at school, and we'd sew for hours and hours.
Most of the blocks are paper pieced -- and my quilting helpers did ALL of the tearing the paper off the backs for me -- how wonderful!
We had so much fun together, that I've joked that we need to decide who to make a quilt for next -- we make a great team!

We had a hard time deciding on a layout for the 90 blocks,
because a simple square design of 9 x 10 blocks seemed too plain.
And I wanted to make it large enough to fit a double/queen sized bed.
One day we just started laying out our blocks on a huge piece of white fabric,
and this design was born!



For the blocks set on point, I cut a 5 1/2 inch square on the diagonal,
then sewed these triangles on all four sides.
For the squared up blocks, I added 2 1/2 inch sashing to all 4 sides.
All blocks were then squared up to 9 inches.
There is another 2 1/2 inch border around the very edge of the quilt.
The fabrics are Kona Snow and Moda Sugar Pop.



I free motion quilted this myself,
using a fairly small meandering type pattern throughout the solid snow fabric.
  I love how it makes the blocks pop!
The batting is Warm and White, and the back is a collection of left over pieces.  


She loved it!


Linking up to:



Fresh Poppy Design

Amy'sCreativeSide
{Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Read!

My only work in progress this week was a pair of blocks for do. Good Stitches.
Paula asked for "word" blocks, plus an extra block to go along with the word.
Since we're doing a lot of reading at our house lately, I decided to do "read" and a bookshelf of books.  If only more of our books could be returned to the bookshelves!





I love that these girls love to read outside, even in Minnesota in late October!
Linking up to:
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Progress


I spent the weekend turning my stack of Farmer's Wife squares into this . . . 

and then this:


I'll write much more about this next week, after I deliver this very special gift!
Linking up to:

{Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations

Friday, October 14, 2011

Birthday Gifts

My daughters have TWO birthday parties to attend this weekend,
so today I whipped up some cute gifts.



The girls helped me choose buttons for the barrettes . . . 
 they were thrilled with this quick little project!
(& I was happy that my glue gun still worked, after many years in a box!)

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Works in Progress, October 5th

I have little bits of lots of things going on this week . . . 

Block 59, "Night and Day"

Block 83, "Spiderweb"

Block 11
 After putting these blocks together,
 I'm not sure I'm in love with Improv piecing . . . . . yet.
I like to have a pattern to follow!
Block 12

This week I finished piecing this Starflower block quilt,
part of the Peace Circle of do. Good Stitches.
My daughters thought it was such fun to have these blocks arrive in the mail last month!


A non-quilty WIP:
Nearly finished, a $20 garage sale find!

On a completely unrelated note, I have a question!
See the antique turquoise jars on the top shelf?
Well, I found a source for lots of these.
So I'm wondering --if I were to sell these
(say in groups of 6)
what would be a reasonable purchase price?

Happy Wednesday!
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced