Hopfaldera

Sampler of some sort

Besides setting monthly goals to finish projects this year (January, February), I am also starting a new project that I want to work on during the year or even longer maybe. It will be a sampler quilt inspired by the Random Sampler on Bloomin' Workshop (I saw Lotje's version in real life), Liberated Medallions and the new free (!) block of the month (BOM) on Craftsy.

What appeals to me is that there is no overall symmetry in these inspirations, and that they all look like little individual quilts put together to make a larger one. It is also an opportunity to put together favorite blocks or techniques in different sizes and come up with something unique.

Not long ago I bought two inspiring fat quarter packs (Fairy Finds and Modernista) of Art Gallery Fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics, and I want to use these for this project. And I'm sure I will add more fabric to that. I still need a background fabric, but I don't want white. I'm thinking of something textured and lively while being neutral.

The first blocks I made for this sampler were the Craftsy BOM blocks for January. They finish 6" square and together with some flying geese they will act as a kind of frame around a larger block.

January Craftsy BOM

I also made the February Craftsy BOM but now I'll wait until June to make a BOM block again, because the blocks that come in March, April and May don't really appeal to me. My plan is to pick my favorite blocks from the Farmer's Wife Sampler and several Japanese patchwork books and make those for this sampler as well. And maybe the Schoenrock Cross block found at Leila's. We'll see, we'll see...

February Craftsy BOM

Haus Sweet Haus

I made this stuffed house toy from a pattern from Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love by Hillary Lang. I made the front Friday afternoon, and just finished it with the backing, ribbon gusset and stuffing this morning. Not hard at all! It´s a little break from making Farmer´s Wife Quilt blocks. I have about 10 new ones finished eventhough the quiltalong is officially on a break. I´m just always afraid I´ll get behind eventually so I frantically am trying to make up for that in advance. I´m sure I´ll take a break from them in the future, but for now I have 3 new blocks planned out fabric-wise.

I wanted to say Happy New Year too. Happy Chinese New Year: Xinnian kuai le! May the dragon fire us up to do wonderful things this year!! I'm planning plenty of them, not only Farmer's Wife's blocks, I'll tell you later.

Resolutions

 

My quilting resolution for this year is to finish these projects. They include things that I have finished piecing and need to quilt, two are blocks that are made for me by fellow bee members and that I want to make into quilts, and a couple are in progress projects that I really want to finish.

If all works out as I see it now, I will have 7 quilts and 2 mini quilts at the end of it. Cool!!

Still busy at the farm

I'm still plowing along at my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt blocks. I have made 53 blocks so far. There are 111 in total, so I only need three more to pass the half way point, pretty good! It's still fun to pick and choose fabric combinations for these blocks. And making the blocks: some are hard, some are easy, some are fun, some are boring. It's great to have that goal of 111 to work towards, and I'm learning a lot.

Here is #48, Homeward Bound. For the most part made with fabric from a tunic that Damaris put on the recycle pile because it was too small.

And these three are partly made with fabric I got as a gift from my friend Monique.

And here is the whole pile of 53 blocks. See them up close on Flickr.

This week...

...I didn't only make Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt blocks (like I promised myself last week). I also made some other things.

First thing was a mini house quilt block for a project thought up by Melinda. The house is only about 4" wide.

The other thing was a tree quilt block for Johanna in Bee Europa 2011. She is going to make a quilt full of trees for her brother, and we could make any tree block we liked with her cute fabrics. I designed this one, the little squares in the tree are 1" by 1", the block is 12.5". I loved making it!

Of course I wanted to keep up a bit with the Farmer's Wife quiltalong so I made three block (quite simple ones, but fun).

#20 Churn Dash

#21 Contrary Wife

#62 Old Windmill

Oh, I almost forgot! I also made two blocks for Do. Good Stitches, the charity bee I am in. The blocks will be cut into quarters by this month's quilter Kat and will be sewn backtogether with other people's blocks to make Bento blocks. That should look great!

Farmer's Wife Quiltalong - it's an addiction

Oh, these Farmer's Wife blocks are addictive! They make you want to make more and more of them and they let you forget all your other projects. You finish one block, and then there is this other block, and it doesn't seem that hard so you make that one too, and then there is a tougher one that you want to try, and then you feel you deserve to make an easier one after that... and so on. So after 3 weeks I have 31 blocks finished (still 80 to go!). I DO need to slow down now!! And work on other stuff!! (I'm saying this to myself)

So here are all the blocks I made so far. And without having put much thought into the colors I'm using, I think they go together pretty well. In a sampler sort of way, which is the way it should be.

I have one favorite block (so far). It was also the most difficult to make (also so far). It is #8 Bouquet. You can see my other blocks individually here.

Farmer's wife??

 

Yesterday I received this book (I had bought it from Amazon, here ). It doesn't really seem like something for me. I am more of a city person. At the most I am a farmer's grandson's wife, or maybe a wind farmer's wife... But I saw blocks from this book pop up all over Flickr and I really liked what people were making. Then I found out about a quilt along based on the book that is aimed at learning these more traditional blocks and the skills that go with them. I love learning more about quilting (I learned everything I know about quilting from or via the internet), so I got the book and joined the Flickr group.

The fabric that is used in the book are reproductions from fabric from the 1800's. Most modern quilters are not too fond of these prints and don't use them. But when I looked through the book I did like some of them. I went to the Fat Quarter Shop webshop and picked out a few reproduction prints that seemed more modern and that appealed to me. I can't wait to see what they will look like mixed in with the other fabric I will be using.

Right after receiving the book I made two blocks (#4 and #2). These are two blocks that I could figure out how to make without having to use the templates. Most blocks are more difficult though, and use templates that you print out from a CD that comes with the book. I haven't worked with templates yet, so I'm looking forward to learning...