Tag: piecing

Farm Girl Friday SAL – Week 14 – Back on Track!

After many interruptions, I finally caught up with the Farm Girl Vintage Sew-Along schedule – yay! This sew-along unites quilters making the blocks from Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage book. The patterns aren’t complicated, but they are detailed; fortunately the instructions are clear and well illustrated. It takes me longer to choose fabric than to make the blocks. My only problem so far is not reading the instructions thoroughly!

I think my favorite block is the Kettle’s On! teapot. My daughter collected small teapots many years ago and her collection was ruined when some of her boxes got crushed in a move. I would love to make her a teapot quilt!

This week’s blocks are Old Glory and Old Red Barn, pictured in the groups below. My blocks are 6-1/2 inches and made almost entirely with scraps. It is really fun to begin to see how these blocks will look in a quilt!

Mama Hen, Feed and Seed, Haystack, Grandma’s Quilt
Furrows, Kettle’s On!, Milking Day, Fresh Pears
Old Glory, Kitchen Window, Gingham, Old Red Barn

You can check out other participants’ blocks and variations on Instagram #farmgirlfridays.

Shelli’s Quilt – Finished

My nephew is only 8 years younger than I am. He is my oldest brother’s son and has always been so special to me – more like a younger brother than a nephew. His wife Shelli is a delight. She is quiet, funny, kind, and has been a steady rock of sanity in our crazy family. She and my nephew live near the small town in Oklahoma where my parents are buried, and every year Shelli elaborately decorates their graves for me on Memorial Day. This quilt is my small thank you to her for her devotion to a loving tradition.

I like the classic beauty of simple blocks and used a variety of fabrics in shades of aqua, red, white/off-white, and gray – Moda’s Flats, Baby Jane, a Yuwa kitchen print, Bonnie and Camille Ruby, and a gray gingham by Studio E.

On the back are Modern Roses by Stephanie Ryan (one of my favorite fabrics ever) and the gray gingham, along with white. I used Jeni Baker’s Nordika for the binding.

I love Modern Roses so much – I even think the selvedge is pretty, so I kept it on the quilt
On the back is “The Road to Oklahoma Meets Lone Star”, blogged about here
I quilted horizontal wavy lines and added a label.

I mailed the quilt to Shelli last week with a letter (that will make my tender-hearted nephew cry). Hopefully she will like it!

UPDATE: 7/10/15 – Shelli did love it! She said it was beautiful and that she put it on her Grandpa’s rocking chair to display it.

Farm Girl Friday SAL – Week 8

The blocks for week 8 of Farm Girl Vintage Sew-Along are Farm Fresh Flower and Farmhouse. I started them last week but got interrupted by errands, family visits, yard work, and housework. OK, and yes I received an Etsy gift card as well as two Amazon gift cards for my birthday, so a lot of time was wasted gleefully spent trying to make my choices. This morning I finally found some time to finish these two cute blocks.

Farm Fresh Flower Block
Farmhouse Block

Honestly I can see myself making full quilts from either block – I really enjoyed the process and love the final results. Be sure to go here to Instagram to see many color variations of blocks made by the #farmgirlfridays group and here to see the blog of the author of Farm Girl Vintage, Lori Holt.

Offset Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt Block

Last week this tutorial for an offset scrappy log cabin block caught my eye. It was on the blog of Quilting is more fun than Housework by Cynthia Brunz. I liked the log cabin aspect and the fact that a curved illusion will result from the different widths of strips. I decided to make a block before I changed my mind.

I chose some favorite blue-green and low volume scraps, and it all went together very quickly. Although the instructions state that it will make a 9-1/2 inch block, as usual my measurements are off at 9-1/4. This week Cynthia added blocks in rainbow colors and I’ve decided to join her Oh Scrap linky party and add more blocks to this one.

In Other News…

I recently celebrated my birthday, and our family had a get-together over the weekend. My son is 45 and and my daughter 39, and still think they are the funniest kids in the world. My daughter gave me a card she made on Zazzle (on the left), and the sentiment “Being your favorite child seems like gift enough” prompted a stern look from her brother. My son and I always exchange silly-humor cards, and his card is on the right. What can I say?

My niece sent flowers as a thank-you for the quilt I finished for her!

It was a great weekend – hope you had a good one too!

Farm Girl Friday SAL – All Caught Up

After running behind for a few weeks, once I buckled down I was able to finish up the blocks needed to catch up to the rest of the Farm Girl Sew-Along community. Pictured above are the 6 inch blocks next to a 12 inch block. I’m really loving the 6 inch size!

Here are my newly completed blocks, starting with Chicken Foot and ending with the two blocks due this week – Crops and Egg Basket:

Chicken Foot
Churn Dash


Cool Threads (the spools look a bit lop-sided until they are seamed up)
Corn and Tomatoes
Country Crossroads
Here is the close-up detail of the fussy cut on Country Crossroads block
Crops
Egg Basket – I think this was my favorite!
Here are all the blocks so far

It is so much fun to see how the pieces all fit together and make familiar shapes. I can’t wait to use the blocks in a quilt or table runner or pillow. As I mentioned in my last post, it takes me a ridiculously long time to pick out the fabric. I am trying hard to be original, use my scraps, and not copy the colors used in the book Farm Girl Vintage, but sometimes, as in the case of Corn and Tomatoes, it’s best to go with the book!

Go here to Instagram to see the beautiful variety of blocks made by the #farmgirlfridays group and here to see the blog of the author of Farm Girl Vintage, Lori Holt.

Hope all of you have a great weekend.

The Road to Oklahoma Quilt Block

One of the commenters on my last post mentioned the quilt block “The Road to Oklahoma”. I had to admit I’ve never made one, in spite of the fact that my blog is named for it, and that it has reflects my roots (see my About section). That comment gave me a great idea (thanks Christine!) for the back of the quilt I’m currently piecing.

The Road to Oklahoma block may be constructed a couple of different ways. One method is to cut trapezoids and squares, as described on Quilter’s Cache:

Trapezoid method

I chose to make half square triangles instead of trapezoids.

Half Square Triangle method

The front of the quilt will be simple block rows. On the back will be the Road to Oklahoma block with coordinating backing. I love the way four blocks create a center star to make a kind of “Road to Oklahoma meets Lone Star”. This will be meaningful to my niece (my nephew’s wife), because she is from Texas and my nephew is from Oklahoma. (My apologies to correct quilters everywhere who know that this star is not the typical strip-pieced Lone Star.)

I ordered more of this pretty gray gingham for backing (so much for my moratorium on purchasing fabric this year ). In the meantime I’ll finish piecing the front of the quilt!

Farm Girl Friday SAL Week 5

I’m still a bit behind in my blocks, but as Lori Holt says, “You are the boss of your own quilt!” This is the Butter Churn block. This was my first time making “flying geese”, and I was fascinated by the process. I measured wrong on two blocks and had to redo a step, but I finally got it right.

I decided to try my hand at the 6 inch size, because the 12 inch blocks are so very big. The photo above shows the difference in size. Unless I change my mind, the remainder of the blocks will be 6 inch – I really enjoyed making the smaller size!

Choosing fabrics for another simple block quilt using 5 inch squares occupied the better part of two days this week. I plan to give this one to the sweet wife of my nephew!

And on another note, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, the state of Texas has received 35 trillion gallons of water during the past month – enough to cover the whole state up to nearly eight inches deep. (Gah!) Our rain gauge has captured 13.40 inches since the first of May. The photo above was taken the day we received almost 4 inches. The water never got close to our house, but we did get another 3 inches the next day. Many Texas towns, including Houston, have experienced catastrophic and historic flooding. I’m sure we will be wishing for rain in the middle of summer, but for now I think we’ve had enough!

Farm Girl Friday SAL Week 4

After receiving the highly anticipated Farm Girl Vintage book and reading it from cover to cover, I started pulling fabrics and eagerly began piecing my blocks.

Apron Strings

I opted for the 12 inch blocks, but now that I’ve started I realize how huge they are!

Autumn Star

The directions are clear and easy to follow, but I somehow managed to make the Autumn Star block a bit larger than the others.

Baby Chick

At first I tried to copy the colors in the book, but now I am simply putting together blocks that suit my fancy.

Baking Day
I’m still not caught up, but I’m having fun! Hopefully this link will work for you to see more photos of other participants’ blocks.

Scrappy Pink and Gray Quilt

We gave my mother-in-law cash for Mother’s Day since she always wants to have money in her purse. But I wanted to make her a lightweight lap quilt because she gets chilly even in the summer. She loves pink, so it was an easy choice to make her this scrappy quilt for her.

Although she would love an all-pink quilt, my stash is short on pink so I added white and gray. These fabrics are a combination of scraps and stash featuring solid soft pink, pink dotted with white, vintage florals, and white prints. The charcoal gray with soft pink flowers provided a nice contrast for squares and binding. I love the white alphabet print with gray letters and wish I had more of it!

I debated adding more stitching, but I like the simple straight lines which play up the squares. The batting specifications indicated quilting could be from 2 to 4 inches apart, and these measure 3-1/2 inches apart.

My husband suggested the quilt might look better without a border, and I’m glad I listened to him.

I cut 5 inch squares; prior to piecing, I planned the placement of each square (you can see my diagram at the bottom of the photo) and sorted them into rows. Then it was a simple matter of chain-piecing each row.

The quilt measured 45 inches x 72 inches. In retrospect I would have added a row to the width.

The backing is one of my all time favorites – a border print from Collage by Carrie Bloomston for Windham. I pieced it in order to put the birds on the bottom. In spite of my resolve to buy no fabric in 2015, I have ordered more of it.

I love the contrast of quirky to vintage prints. The colors worked well too.
Love these birdies!

Vintage Quilt Completed

 Completed vintage quilt folded for mailing to my niece in Oregon

In 2012 my niece sent me the quilt top her maternal grandmother pieced, probably in the 1960s or 1970s. All my niece knows about it is that “Grandma Hunter” intended to make all her grandkids a quilt but this is probably the only one that got started. Mrs. Hunter was a farmer’s wife who raised three children, canned vegetables from her garden, and cared for chickens, cows, and farm pets, so I’m not sure how she even had time to cut fabric, much less piece a quilt.

Buddy can’t figure out why there is a quilt in the “his” yard

 Pieced back

At some point in its history, someone had laundered the quilt top, and many of the blocks frayed badly on the outer edges. My first step was to repair those blocks, then I added a coordinating border and pieced backing. In retrospect I wish I had added a touch of yellow to the backing and border, but I bet my niece won’t care.

 The quilt remained on the cutting board for months

After I sandwiched the quilt it sat folded up on my cutting table for many months. I normally don’t have a problem with this step of the process, but this was the largest quilt I have sandwiched, there were way too many wrinkles, and I simply dreaded trying to quilt around all those wrinkles. My problem was solved when I saw a tip on the blog of Late Night Quilter. This tip involves using an acrylic quilting ruler to smooth the fabric as you adhere it to the batting. I separated the layers from the batting and re-sandwiched using my 12-inch Big Mama and 24-inch Big Daddy acrylic rulers (designed by Trudie Hughes and purchased when I first started quilting), and magic happened – the layers miraculously smoothed out!

I quilted simple wavy lines for the body of the quilt, straight lines on the border, and graduated half-squares in the corners.

Finished size was 78 inches by 92 inches.

I fell in love with the vintage fabric used in this scrappy quilt.

My favorite fabric is this black with little safety pins.

This was a true scrappy quilt. I can imagine Mrs. Hunter painstakingly cutting scraps from cast-off clothing and love how she pieced the elongated diamonds. It was such an honor to complete her quilt!

UPDATE! She loved it! She said it was gorgeous, couldn’t believe how pretty it was, and that she couldn’t be happier with it. She made my day.