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!

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