The Farmer's Wife and Me

A while ago...ok, so it was really about a Year and a half ago...time has a way of flying right away from me now that I'm a little more than middle-aged, I was invited to take part in a Farmer's Wife quilt along organized by our local quilt shop.  The idea was that we would meet on the first Saturday of each month for one year to discuss the blocks included in The Farmer's Wife Quilt Sampler book and have a show & tell of blocks we had made during that month.




The book written by Laurie Aaron Hird, was inspired by letters from farmer's wives in the 1920's to the "Farmer's Wife" magazine, and it includes illustrations of 111 (yes that's right...111)   6" blocks. 

I don't consider myself a particularly experienced quilter but decided the FWQAL would be a wonderful way to increase my skills in many areas. Every block in the book is made by templates, which are found on the CD in the back of the book. I had never worked with templates before so I wasn't quite prepared for all that's involved in the process.  But I thought okay, no problem.  After all, the illustrations were there and the CD with the templates AND I had an experienced quilter-friend taking part with me in the QAL what could go wrong?

Well, it wasn't long until I found out what could go wrong!  The templates!  It's true, they were right there on the CD but when I tried to print them out none of them came out the right size for the block size!  First problem.  After several attempts to make them work I gave up on the whole template idea and decided I would search online for cutting instructions using fabric measurements and rotary cutter.  And I found what I was looking for at the Quilting Board, a quilter's message board.  Suddenly life as a Farmer's Wife QALer was much simpler!  Here's a link to the site in case any of you are interested in starting your own FW quilt.
Farmers Wife Sampler at the Quilting Board  Some of the other problems I ran into were getting the measurements exactly right because when you are working with such small pieces that go into a 6 inch block, every tiny bit off makes a big difference.  And then there was the problem of placement of the components of each block.




I made many mistakes in that area!  Here's an example in my Country Path block.











But I've had a few successes too and I'm about half finished with the 111 blocks.  I have a little over 50 left to complete.


 I put the project away for quite a while but I'm inspired to take it out and work on a few more blocks.




It's a BIG project but I know I'll finish it in time and I will have learned a whole lot of great stuff by the time it's done.







As I tell one of my quilting friends; it isn't about how quickly you get it done, it's about the process involved in getting it done!











Have a lovely Sunday!

 


Grammy

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