Farmer's Wife Sampler

Have you heard about the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt-a-Long? It's been buzzing all over the net for months and I finally decided to bit the bullet and buy the book. If you do some googleing, you'll find where it all started, and plenty of examples of gorgeous blocks.

After seeing Camille's blocks, I had to do mine in Ruby...plus I needed a little break from Swoon.


Block 1: Attic Windows


Block 2: Autumn Tints



Block 4: Basket Weave

Block 34: Flock. I skipped ahead to this one as I liked the look of it.

Swoon Blocks 6 & 7

Block 6, a yellow and green combo (and that spot on the yellow near the top is just some water from the iron)




Block 7; purple and blue combo. That purple is my favourite fabric from the collection.

Swoon Block 5

Another day, another block. I really do love the purple & orange combo.




Seam-Pressing
Like a lot of patterns, Swoon doesn't have any instructions on how to press the seams. If you're an experienced quilter it's not too bad, but if your a bit of a newbie, it can be a bit daunting. These are my tips.

HSTs: For the blocks that are half colour/half white, press towards the coloured triangle. For the block that is colour 1/colour 2, press towards colour 2 (the colour of your centre star). That way your seams will go together nicely when you make the corner blocks (shown below).

This gives you an idea of how I pressed the seams, starting with the HSTs as described above. I tended to press the seams in the direction they wanted to fall which helps minimise bulk.

The other component is the unit made of of the flying geese and solid rectangle. No matter which way you press the seams, they don't fit with the corner units. So I found it easier to press them open. There is still enough bulk in the seam to allow the seams to butt up against each other fairly well, without being too bulky.

Swoon Blocks 3 & 4

Block 3; not such a striking contrast but I love it anyway.




Block 4...its so sunny!

Swoon Block 2

Another block, and I LOVE this one. I'm not usually a fan of orange but it's quite striking against the deep purple.

Do you think Bella could be any more of a sticky beak?

Swoon Block 1

Boy is this block bigger than I expected! Lots of seams, and no pressing directions, but it seems to go together pretty well.

And it looks like this is my 300th post! I see a giveaway in the future...

Colour

The bit I find hardest about quilting is choosing colour combinations, even within a line of fabric. Sometimes I think two fabrics will go together, I stitch them up, and it just doesn't work. It's hard to visualise how the fabrics will look in a particular block before you've seen it.

I'm trying to pick 18 Central Park fat quarters for Swoon, and I'm finding that I'm really drawn to the purples and blues, but not so much a fan of the greens.

This is the first combination I had, but thought it might be too much yellow.


I subbed out one of the yellows for a brown.



Thoughts? Is there too much or two little of any of the colours? Do the combinations work?


Update: my latest combination...I think this works a lot better.