Two UFOs Finished

Please join me in celebrating the completion of not just one UFO, but (drumroll, please) TWO!!

Not only did I finish the September UFO - Farmer's Wife Quilt, I finally finished June's UFO - Flag Day Farm. Wow. For me this is huge. They've been weighing on me not just this month, but for years. I suppose I bought that center panel of Flag Day Farm a full 10 years ago, if not more. And I began making Farmer's Wife blocks when that book was published in 2009.

Whew. Let's have a look. Both quilts are square, which I normally do not prefer, but that's what worked, so there ya' go. Deal with it, right?

The June UFO was Flag Day Farm, and I just barely made a dent in the process of creating this medallion quilt. Everything is made up from my own head here, and I couldn't duplicate it if I tried. The panel is approximately 21" square and I knew I wanted it to be on point. Since the panel is from an old line of fabric by Minick and Simpson, I decided that I would only use newer Minick and Simpson fabrics to construct the quilt. I had most of this on hand, however I did buy the floral for the outer border on sale at a flat fold table at Old Town Fabrics. The quilt measures 72" square, and I am giving serious consideration to quilting this by hand for Greenfield's upcoming History Day. I will do big-stitch quilting, and, in keeping with Minick and Simpson style, I will imitate the 'Baptist Fan' quilt design that Lori Simpson prefers using on her quilts. 

Farmer's Wife Quilt is September's UFO, and I have finished it just in time. It measures 66" square, and while it is far from a perfectly constructed quilt, I think I will be quite pleased with it when it is eventually quilted. The backing has already been selected from the stash, so it could be only a matter of time. Previous posts here on the blog explain why my FWQ is so much smaller than most, so a search will give you addition information if you want.

I am linking up with Amanda for her Finish It Up Friday party. If you think all quilters sew only quilts, you will be surprised to see Amanda's pretty dresses in her post today.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

September UFO

Even though I still have a few minor tasks to complete, for all intents and purposes I am considering this Farmer's Wife Quilt UFO a finish - another in the month it was assigned. Whew! Down to the wire on this. I dreaded facing it because I think I knew deep down that the blocks were not all uniform 6.5", and that some would have to be eased into place to fit. I trimmed things I normally would not trim in order to get this checked off my list. I am continually reminded by other quilters that done is better than perfect.

This quilt will be a poster child for that sentiment!

Since it has been years of start-and-stop work on this quilt (first post here), there are plenty of references to it in past posts. I won't recap all of that here. In a nutshell, a complete FWQ calls for somewhere in the neighborhood of over 100 blocks. I made 53, decided that was enough, and chose 50 of them to use here. (The 3 orphans that will find a use elsewhere.)

Because I could not just pick them up and sew them together randomly, I had to lay them out on the bed to arrange the blocks in a way that pleased me. I didn't fuss too much, but I did try to separate colors evenly around the quilt.

I had already decided that the sashing strips would be this brown in the photo above. I sewed all the sides onto the blocks and made rows. See what I mean about done is better than perfect? I have completely obliterated so many points on these blocks.

Then I had to go to the stash to find cornerstone and setting triangle fabric. I sorta' had a notion that red would be nice, so I dug out the big stash tub of reds. I found the Floral Trails from 1999 which seemed suitable, so I went with it. Then as I straightened around the remaining reds, I found this big hunk of Garden Dance and decided it could be called into service as a back. Voila! FWQ is 100% stash. Yeah!

At that point it was a very methodical afternoon of sewing rows and sashings together. When I had the first half done, I took the photo above, and then proceeded to finish the other half. By late last night, I had a finish except for trimming and corner triangles.

Because I need to do a lot of school work today, I won't get back to this until late tonight or tomorrow. I am debating the need for an outer border. That is yet to be determined. I will decide while trimming and attaching the corners.

I am going to link up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts and her Let's Bee Social party. She is featuring a new pattern - a cute panda bear baby quilt. It's darling.

The month ends on Saturday. I sure have been a lazy blogger this month. Maybe I will be more enthused in October. I did get a lot accomplished in September, so maybe that is a worthy trade-off.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Revisiting The Farmer's Wife Quilt

Social media sometimes boggles my mind. The path to revisiting my Farmer's Wife Quilt has some twists and turns involving social media, so bear with me as I set this up.

Back in March 2015, I had a goal to make at least 25 more Farmer's Wife blocks to go with the 20 (plus or minus) that I already had finished. I wrote about that endeavor here. It was a very short post and it contained just two pictures. Rather mundane in all regards.

It occurred to me that the two blocks, however, were really striking contrasts in fabric choices. Both blocks used the same red, but one had a white background print while the other had a dark gray background print. The contrast in how the red fabric looks when paired with different backgrounds is quite marked.

For whatever reason, I then did something that I don't do very often. I posted the pictures on Pinterest. And this is where the strange workings of social media come into play. In the two years since I posted these pictures, the red and white block has been pinned by over 4000 Pinterest users. Whopping popularity! The other block has been pinned by 73. The appeal for the block with the greater contrast far surpasses that of the block with low contrast.

This social media puzzle gets somewhat more involved when considering that I consistently have people looking at that post from March 2015 (link above). As a blogger, I have access to a page that provides data on what posts are popular, how many readers check the blog on a daily, weekly or  monthly basis, and more. I don't understand all of the data this page provides me, but I do understand that this one ordinary blog post from a random day in March/'15 is looked at several hundred times a day - still! I think it is a totally logical guess that those 4000+ pinners at Pinterest are clicking on the link to take a look. I am sure they are disappointed by such an dull blog post.

One person - Hi Donna! - has just recently left a comment, and I want to use the rest of today's post to answer her question.

Yes, I did reach my goal of making 25 blocks in that month. And ever since completing them, they, along with the 28 previous ones I had made (for a total of 53), have been safely stored away in a plastic tub here in my sewing room. Sometime in the next 6 months I will be turning them into a quilt top, as I have it listed as one of my UFOs for this year.

Here are some collages of them. I know the original pattern called for a lot more than 53 blocks, but these seemed like enough for me, and when the time comes I will figure out some way or other to form them into a decent-looking quilt top.

Good eye if you don't see that red and gray block represented here. I did the 52 very easily, and what could be done with one leftover block?

All of this twisting and turning of details come together here for my little social media story - I hope I made sense in detailing it. I am going to link this post back to the original March/'15 post so those thousands of pinners can come here if they so desire and see where I stand on this UFO. And when I do finally finish the quilt top, I will blog about it, and again link these posts just for making them all easier to find.

**Added later! If you'd like to see my finished Farmer's Wife Quilt flimsy, click here. Thanks for visiting and showing an interest in the crazy journey I had with this quilt!

Have a great day!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

March Goal Met

Oh yeah, I am doing a little happy dance today, ladies and gentlemen, because I finished off the 25th block in my UFO March challenge.

I have known since before the first of the month that I needed to get these blocks done, yet I didn't start on them until the 15th. What was I thinking? I really wanted to accomplish the task, though, so I have deliberately focused my sights on achieving the goal. The big sewing day at Terry's on Tuesday was what put me over the top. I planned for it by getting the last 11 blocks all cut out. Then I took only those pieces to Terry's to work on. No alternative options allowed. It was quite a lot of fun seeing them take shape. By the time I packed up to head for home I had only 4 blocks left to make. I did 3 of them that night, and finished the last block yesterday morning. Ta-da! Goal accomplished.

Hovering Birds - I have two of this block; the other is hand-stitched.

Grape Basket

Railroad

Streak of Lightning

Linoleum

Windblown

Hovering Hawks

Sawtooth

Maple Leaf

Peace and Plenty

Steps to the Altar

Now, do I stack these away for another couple of years like I did the first 28 blocks I made? Hopefully not. I have considered my options from this point on. I do think I am done with making blocks for this quilt. Yes, I know there are 111 blocks in the book; I choose to stop at 53. I will add in some setting blocks (plain? HST? QST? something fancier?) and I will consider sashing strips and cornerstones. Ideas may have to incubate for awhile, but I would like to see this sampler quilt finished up. I will try not let it languish too long.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

FWQ Homestretch

Today I will be taking my sewing machine and 11 little baggies of quilt block pieces to Terry's for a marathon day of sewing. It is my hope to get as many of these remaining blocks done as possible. Eleven blocks is quite ambitious, but they are cut out and ready to go.

It took me quite a long time to do all that cutting out business, let me tell you. The process involved finding the correct templates, deciding and selecting fabrics, prepping fabric for cutting, then the actual cutting. Whew! My menopausal temps were in overdrive, as I often found myself sweating it out! (Quilting is such WORK!!)

Here is a look at my process. I pulled and auditioned fabrics, made decisions and labeled with sticky notes. Then one by one, I pressed and cut. Knowing that today could be entirely devoted to sewing, I wanted to have all of them ready to go. It took me most of Sunday and Monday morning to complete them all.

I do have 2 more finished blocks to share. Before the gargantuan task of cutting, I sewed these blocks which I had cut out on Sunday. One of them went together beautifully, while the other was a total trainwreck.

Rosebud, despite her somewhat puckery parts, went together like a dream. I could have been more diligent at the ironing board, but I love this pretty block. It wasn't on my original list of blocks I wanted to make, but as I perused the book, it grew on me, and now I'm glad it did.

While Rosebud was effortlessly assembled, Swallow, on the other hand, was not so easily managed. I do believe that every single non-bias seam on this block was sewn, un-sewn and re-sewn, much to my chagrin. Scant quarter-inch seams were necessary. I do know know why it had such issues. The cutting was quite straightforward; the piecing was not overly challenging. It sure was a headache, though. But now that it's done, I do love it, and I am happy with this block and the previous one in that I've adding in some zests of color. Too many of my blocks have been dull - boring browns. I think when the quilt is laid out, I will have more interest by distributing these pops of color throughout. Hope so, anyway.

That's all for today, Peeps! I've gotta' get ready to head out for Terry's.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Farmer's Wife Update

Since I have been doing so many of these posts about my progress on the Farmer's Wife blocks, the creative blog titles are getting, well, not so creative. Sorry about that.

Hopefully, the progress is making up for the lame titles. Here are the two latest blocks which I made over the weekend. This brings me to a grand total of 13 finished this month. My goal is to do 25; I have just over a week remaining to do 12 blocks. Over halfway - woohoo!

The first block is called Broken Sugar Bowl. The next one is called Country Path. I took some liberties with the color placements on that second block. I suppose that since I am the quilter, I can do what I want. The farmer's wife would have used what she had, and so the quilt police can forgive any slight variations that I make.

I will have a couple more to show you tomorrow,  I hope.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Steady Work on FWQ

Last evening, with very little fanfare, we officially welcomed SPRING! We had a couple of days earlier in the week that were quite spring-like, but yesterday was gray and cool. Today promises to be lovely, according to Mr. TV Weatherman, so here are my spring greetings to you all:

In the midst of March Madness and other day-to-day things we all do, I am finding time to continue my steady countdown of finishing 25 Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt blocks this month.

A day or so ago, I made Friendship block. I like these blocks with big pieces; they are mighty nice to tackle when time is at a premium. This is one such block.

Checkerboard was rather simple, too. I have been pressing all the seams open on blocks like this. The results have been good, so I suppose I will continue to do it that way. With the completion of these two blocks, I believe the count is down to 15 remaining to be made. That's practically the homestretch, right?

Today, we are off to Columbus to watch basketball at our daughter and son-in-law's. I need to fix some food - ham and Swiss sliders and an appetizer, - but I'd also like to sew another block - or two - before we leave!!

Happy Spring, Friends, and Happy Quilting, too!