The Farmer's Wife Journey Begins

And so it has begun! I finally got to start on the much anticipated Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt! I have decided I am making the queen sized quilt and making one of each block. As of right now, I am done 8 blocks (we won't talk about how there are still 103 to go...) and I am loving it. I had a seriously difficult time tearing myself away to work on my other sampler quilts.

To start with, I am using a rainbow of fabrics. It is actually two fabric bundles, one of fat quarters from fabricworm.com and the other of 1/4 yards from Sew Fresh Fabrics on Etsy. We are considering it a late mothers day gift since I had to return the original gift. I don't really expect this to get me all the way through, but it is a good start and each block really doesn't use much fabric, especially since I am doing white in each. I have decided that each block will be one color + white and I'll try to do a roughly even number of each color plus some rainbow blocks that have them all in it. I am trying to keep the color values roughly the same as the book and replacing the lightest color with white and trying to get enough contrast out of the other fabrics. Ideally out of each 6 blocks there will be one of each color depending on which fabrics work for what.

I thought about going in numerical order like so many others seem to be doing, but I ultimately decided to go in the order that the blocks are in the letters. I love reading them and then making the corresponding blocks. Somehow it gets me in the right frame of mind. And I have discovered something very important: I kind of love using the templates! I don't know why, but they are like magic to me, just making everything fit so perfectly together. I don't even mind cutting out the pieces! It's funny because I was so dreading them.

On to the blocks!

#26 - Cut Glass Dish

This was the first block I did and I didn't use templates, I did the math and rotary cut it. It came out well although I wish I'd used a more red fabric instead of the apples.

#54 - Kitchen Woodbox

Simple. Lovely.

#24 - Country Path

I love the way this came out, especially the little fussy cut people. Obviously that top corner square is a little wonky, but oh well. It will be fine when I sew it into the quilt.

#79 - Silver Lane

This came out really cool. I wish the pieces for the pinwheel in the center didn't have so much white so it stood out more, but it still works.

#34 - Flock

I love that it kind of looks like fish kissing :)

#46 - Hill & Valley

Love that orange fabric!

#18 - Century of Progress

This is one I was definitely scared of, but it really wasn't bad at all. The templates make it all seem so easy and much less threatening.

#51 - Hovering Birds

This is probably my favorite so far! This is one I thought about switching the white and color and reversing it from the book, but I'm glad I didn't.

And here they are all together, the first 8 blocks:

This is going to be a very happy quilt :)


All of these sampler QALs are turning out to be great for me. Already I can tell that my piecing is getting so much more accurate and I find things lining up better and points where they are supposed to be. Not always, but more often than not at this point and that is a huge improvement for me. I love having one block to focus on at a time and them all being different so I don't become bored or impatient like I tend to when I am making 30 of the same block sometimes. I am really looking forward to continuing these. We'll see how many FW blocks I end up making per week. I am pretty much going with whatever I feel like and aiming to make at least 2. For tons of eye candy, check out the flickr group if you haven't already :)