Wednesday, October 19, 2011

WIP Wednesday #16: I like sewing again

Last week on WIP Wednesday I was mad at the world and down on sewing.  Well, I took the Megaquilter into the Viking dealership and I'll be waiting a few weeks to get it back.  In the meantime, I've been working on just fun little therapeutic sewing projects to try to get some of my mojo back.  That means Farmer's Wife quilt blocks... the first two are from more than a week ago.
Block 48: Homeward Bound.  Simple 9-patch.  I like the little hearts.
Block 49: Honeycomb.  I drew this on graph paper and then paper-pieced it.  I like the honey-gold colors and the autumnal background... I kept thinking of Keats: "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness..."
Block 50: Honey's Choice.  5x5 grid, little girl dress scraps.  Sweetness.
Block 51: Hovering Birds.  Bird-named blocks mean lots of half-square triangles.
Block 52: Hovering Hawks.  More with the birds already.
Block 53: Jackknife.  Another 9-patch.  The four corner blocks are made from HSTs cut 2 7/8", then I used the  "fast 45" sew-and-flip technique with 1 1/2" squares on the corners.  I really like the color combination in this one.  Not fabrics I would usually put together.
Block 54: Kitchen Woodbox.  This is basically a Log Cabin with corners made from the fast-45 technique and 2 1/2" squares.  Bit of a funky modern color combination for me, but I like it.

Wow, almost halfway on these blocks and they're still fun.  I've found that almost all the blocks are also in 1001 Patchwork Designs by Maggie Malone... I have had this book for several years (originally found it at Goodwill!) and it's great because it shows the underlying grid for the blocks so you can draft them yourself, in any size.  I like the Farmer's Wife Quilt book for inspiration and the stories, but since I really don't like to use templates unless absolutely necessary, I appreciate the help with block analysis.  And if there's a Farmer's Wife block I absolutely hate, there are almost 900 others to choose from in this book.

I'm giving serious thought to joining another quilt-along -- the Crumb-along with me over at Jo's Country Junction.  It's just something I have to consider, with this pile of tiny scraps I've been saving:

Of course I would have to be absolutely crazy to save those teensy scraps, right?  Which makes me a perfect candidate for this quilt-along.  Even though it's mostly finished and I'd be mostly sewing on my own.  I'll decide whether to jump in in a few days, if I can tear myself away from the Farmer.

I'll be linking up over at Freshly Pieced, so be sure to check out all the other great things going on in the quilting world.

1 comment:

Rebecca said...

I love the idea of putting my 'crumbs' into a quilt top :)