Farm Friendliness or Color Revealed

One of my favorite categories in the juried exhibition at QuiltCon was the "Modern Traditionalism" catagory.  So many of us quilt precisely because it links us back to the history of women making beautiful objects, by hand, for family and friends.  And, yet, we are looking for a way to put our own stamp on this tradition.

One of the bees I am participating in this quarter is a "sampler" bee, so I went to my bookshelf and pulled out my favorite go-to block book:

The block I chose was the "Farm Friendliness" block, pictured here:

I made a couple of test blocks...only to realize I flipped the corner triangles---oops.

Ah, well, I decided I liked it that way anyhow.  Then I started playing with the way this layout could look depending on your value choices:

Version 3

Version 1

Version 2

Next, on to color choices. The drawings above provide layout for a twin sized quilt, consequently I needed to raid the stash for a color I had a LOT of...and here you have it.

While I chose fabrics, the monkeys played "bedtime":

Here you have the results of the cutting process.  That is 24 blocks, each comprised of 9 squares, 8 of which are seamed...so that is a grand total of....drumroll please...408 pieces!!!!!

The pile of chain-pieced rectangles...

With all this seaming and triangles, there are A LOT of places to screw up (if you are ME).  Needless to say, I was spouting a few expletives at one point last week.  After one row, I decided to take a break.  Here, is the beginnings anyway:

Forgive the light---there are not a lot of places in this 100-year old house to photograph something this big and I am just not trekking out in March snow (!!!) to pin it to the fence!  

Now...just 20 more to go!! What do you think?


Part of:


 

Paper Piecing Pinwheels

This is one of those happy accidents. And it's February in the Northeast---a dark and wet time, so I am telling you---I can use all the happy accidents I can get!! 

In searching for a pinwheel pattern I liked for my latest round of Flickr quilting bees, I came upon this pattern by Peggy Miller.  Turns out it was included in a Craftsy class that Peggy had done. As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of the Craftsy platform, so I hopped over there and got myself a whole class on paper piecing.  

Paper piecing by definition includes a LOT of paper! Each of these blocks comes with four quadrants.  So for 6 blocks I had to make 24 of these squares:

After I ripped off the paper---before assembling each block---my 5 year old decided to make a puzzle of the piles of paper on the dining room table and make me a Valentine! Love him.

The resulting block has two layout options: 

 I went with having more of the lighter layout and here is the finished result:

So the happy accident is this:  I meant this as a Bee block---I would do one for each person in the group.  However, I misread the pattern, thought I needed to resize it (which I didn't) and so this original block came out bigger than expected.  I liked it so much I decided to run with it and make a quilt I never intended to make.

What do you think?  Leave me a comment!

In with the New

I recently got interested in checking out the online quilting community that exists on Flickr.  I got accepted to a bee that asked us to do blocks that included some kind of hexagon.  Having done Amy Gibson's Block of the Month on Craftsy and with my local quilt guild, I had already experimented a little with English paper piecing and hand-sewing hexagons.  I looked for a way I could do this in an improv fashion and still get some hand-sewing in---great for doing while catching up on episodes of Mad Men...

Here is what I came up with:

We were given each person's color choices and then asked to make the same block in each palette.

This was my first block and I was a little bothered that the hexagons came out a little wonky, but then I decided to embrace the imperfections and run with it.  In the end, I am pretty happy with how they turned out.

What do you think?

Here is another little hexagon project that will become a baby quilt.

I look forward to sharing all the blocks I receive when I get them. Getting mail is such a rare treat these days!!