Last week I promised I would share more about the Farmer's Wife. In the 1920s the perception by most of the country was that the wife of a farmer was more slave than partner, and she would never want her daughter to lead the same life. The Farmer's Wife magazine (such a creative name, right) decided to hold a contest asked its readers this very question. Most women replied that they loved their lives and would want the same life for their children.
In 2009, well probably a few years before that since the book was published in 2009, Laurie Aaron Hird gathered the 65 winning essays and paired each essay with 2 quilt blocks. There have been several quilters before me who've made this quilt (several are online if you do a search for the Farmer's Wife quilt.) If you're in the process of making this there's a great group of quilters over on flickr that are working on this quilt (Farmer's Wife 2014).
Now for this week's blocks. Technically these are next week's blocks. I looked through the book and there are 54 blocks that can be done with two colors, 44 blocks that can be done with three colors, and 9 blocks that require four colors. (There's also five blocks that are made with five or more colors, but we're not thinking about those right now.) Right now I have three shades of fabric. I'm attending a retreat at the end of this month where I'm going to work on my paint chip challenge quilt. I'm currently using black fabric from that quilt for my Farmer's Wife blocks and need to know how much black I'm going to use on the paint chip quilt before I order more fabric. When I do I'll order three more shades of grey and my sashing fabric so I can do the sashing as I go. Sadly the blocks I was scheduled to make this week are 2 of the 9 that need four fabrics so I skipped ahead to the next two blocks.
Has anyone else had the experience that two 2" HST squares don't equal a 3.5" square? Is there a trick I'm missing or is it part of the "doing this to improve piecing skills" thing?
#34 Flock
I've lost count of how many times I've reminded myself that I'm working on this project to improve my piecing skills, and that in order to improve it means you can't be perfect at the start. Block #46 Hill and Valley really tested my piecing skills. I made a decent block on my first attempt, until I tried to square it up. Below you can compare how it looks next to Flock.
I ended up paper piecing this block. Did you know that with graph paper you can make your own paper piecing templates? (There are paper piecing templates out there for all of the blocks, but I want to work them out on my own didn't feel like looking for them am nuts.) In figuring out this block I saw a variation from the one in Farmer's Wife and decided to do two triangles at the top of the larger triangle rather than the square used in the book.
#46 Hill and Valley
Farmer's Wife 4/111
5:15*
As I keep track of time I'm only included time I spend cutting, piecing, ripping, and repiecing. I'm not including the time I spend figuring out the measurements for the blocks.
Very pretty blocks! You did a great job!
ReplyDeleteI used HST paper every chance I got, and was sad with the blocks where the sizes were so weird that it wasn't possible. When I make this quilt again (yes, I'm nuts enough to make another one) I intend to paper piece a lot of the blocks. This time around I only did about a half dozen with that method.
I'm already contemplating making a second Farmer's Wife quilt. There are so many great fabric combinations for this quilt it's hard to think of only doing one.
DeleteIt is a test of piecing ability that is for sure. Can you believe this is the first quilt I ever worked on. I took a class. With persistence it came out looking pretty good. I am sure your quilt will be great too.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine making this quilt as my first ever quilt. It does seem like a great one for learning technique though.
DeleteI have heard many times that PP these blocks is a much smoother approach for the FWQ. Enjoy the process or try at least;) :P lol Then again I haven't attempted any of them yet so I can't say too much!
ReplyDeleteI've heard that about these blocks too. Unfortunately I really hate paper piecing so I avoid it as much as possible. Maybe as I use it on the more challenging blocks I'll learn to enjoy paper piecing more.
DeleteThese blocks look great! Thanks for the inspiration to start my own Farmer's Wife one day. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's definitely a challenging quilt, but the blocks are well worth it.
DeleteI'm dying to make this block. I keep seeing it lately and every time I see it, I like it. I haven't committed to the Farmers Wife, but they are so pretty. I want to!! How do you think it compares with Dear Jane? Do you think they are equal in challenge, or is one more difficult than the other?
ReplyDeleteI haven't made any of the Dear Jane blocks so I don't really know how it compares. My guess is that since the blocks for Farmer's Wife are 6" instead of the 4" blocks of Dear Jane it's slightly easier since you'd be working with bigger pieces. One of the things I love about the Farmer's Wife quilt is that a lot of the blocks can stand alone. It would be really striking to have all of those HSTs repeating throughout an entire quilt.
Delete