UFO Monday: The Farmer's Wife Quilt

I am the queen of UFOs (unfinished objects).  It's so much more fun to start new projects than to finish old ones.  Lucky for me, there is a group on facebook that's working on the Farmer's Wife quilt so I'm picking that project up again.

These are a few of my recent blocks. Since I started this project, I feel like I'm seeing hot pink everywhere.  Maybe my wild color choice wont look so wild after all.

I originally planned to only do 50 of the blocks, but now that I have a group of other women to help keep me going, I might make more.  I certainly have enough pink fabric to make all 111 blocks.

27 days until Drama Girl leaves for college.  Her bedroom looks like a bomb went off.  Somehow, it needs to all get sorted and packed and stored.  At the moment the task looks impossible but I know we'll get it done.  I'm savoring every last day with her.  I'm listening to her plans to spend next summer in Europe and my heart is breaking thinking about how much I'm going to miss her.  I'm grateful that keeping my hands busy with quilts is so very comforting to me.

Design Wall Monday: 4 more Farmer's Wife blocks

This weekend I pulled out my Farmer's Wife blocks again to work on.  I'm getting a bit frustrated with the Farmer's Wife book, so I've re-engineered many of the blocks and two of these are from a different book.  So the "Buzzard's Roost" block in the lower right has extra seam lines for example.  Usually I end up with fewer seams than the FW book.  It was just easier to make a series of flying geese for this one than aligning all the different triangles.

I still haven't used all of my hot pink fabrics.  There are quite a few jammed into this bin.  I'm enjoying these bright happy blocks.  22 down, 28 to go.

Linking up today to Patchwork Times.

Farmers Wife 16 Blocks

My Farmer's Wife Quilt is moving right along. I have 16 blocks finished now and I've barely made a dent in my stash of hot pink fabrics.

I've spent a lot of time this week cleaning out my quilting corner in the garage.  It's been quite a trip down memory lane.  I used to make extra blocks for every quilt I made.  I could make a whole quilt just from the piles of orphan blocks I found.  I wonder when I got out of that habit?  It's a little sad to see how bright some of those fabrics really are, when the quilts that have been used and loved are getting so faded over time.  That's how it's meant to be I suppose.

Everyone in the house is taking turns getting sick.  Is there anything more annoying than a summer cold?  So far I've been lucky.  We'll see how long that lasts.

Design Wall Monday: 12 Farmer's Wife Blocks

I'm moving right along with my hot pink Farmer's Wife Quilt.  I'm having so much fun with this.  I just flip through the pages and do whichever block strikes my fancy at the moment.  I've still been too lazy to start printing out templates.  Everything you see is just done by calculation and stitch-and-flip.

Math skills are great - until they let you down.

See this block?  Isn't it gorgeous?  I did my calculations and spent some time making it  I was so proud.

Until I realized the completed block is only five inches instead of six.

Argh.  This one goes in the orphan block pile.  Possibly to become a cute pin cushion or something someday.

Design Wall Monday is hosted by Judy at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday: Farmer's Wife 8 blocks

My "Farmer's Wife's Midlife Crisis" Jubilee quilt only got four more blocks this week.  I still have barely dipped  into my stash of hot pinks and I'm having a lot of fun with it.  I'm too lazy to work from templates so I'm just doing the math for each block in my head.  I'll need to use templates for some of the more difficult blocks.

The farmer's wife in my imagination is not a shy person.  She mixes her batiks with mind-bending geometrics with florals. 

She likes pinks so hot they're almost red.

But she still likes the occasional sweet cherry print.  As long as the cherries are deep pink.

I would love to work faster on this quilt but the incredibly good weather has pulled me out to the garden most days.  I need to find a "look how much I've cleaned up the garden" weekly meme.  Maybe "Weedless Wednesday."

Design Wall Monday is hosted by Judy at Patchwork Times.

The Farmer's Wife's Midlife Crisis Quilt

For the past year, quilting bloggers all over the internet have been making blocks based on a book called "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt."



The blocks are  interesting, and range from very simple to a bit more complex.  Everywhere I looked, people were posting pictures of their blocks.

So about a year ago I bought the book.  I was going to get in on this!

Life and other quilts got in the way.  But I made a Pinterest board of some of the cool blocks and helpful tips.  I started thinking about what fabrics I wanted to use.

Time passed.

More time passed.  The bandwagon continued to fill with Farmer's Wife quilts everywhere.  I thought I'd catch up.

Guess what?  The quilt-along is finishing.  All 111 blocks.  There is no more hope of catching up.  Therefore, it seemed like a good time to start.  No pressure, right? 

So here, better late than never, are my first few blocks.  I was too impatient to print out all the templates required so I just did the math in my head to cut the pieces the right size.

My quilt is going to feature a lot of hot pink.  

This one is just for me.  No matter how much the girls beg.  In fact, I'm thinking of making this my "Jubilee" quilt - 50 blocks to celebrate my 50 years.  Then I'll call it the Farmer's Wife Midlife Crisis quilt.

Bandwagons. . .I might miss them, but eventually I get where I want to go.