Down On The Farm

There isn't much sewing going on around here lately.  It seems my inability to focus has caused me to spend tons of time in the sewing room moving stuff around and looking at fabric, pretty pictures, and patterns but no actual sewing.  I'm a few blocks behind on my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Quilt again already but I did manage to sew up a few of them in the last week or so.

Noon & Light Block # 60

Peace & Plenty Block # 64

I'm not a huge fan of Square Dance.  I wanted to use the stripe fabric because I have been having a really hard time working that in to these little squares but I'm not sure it has enough contrast to really make that block pop the way it needs to since it is such a simple block.

Square Dance Block # 85

Tulip Block # 96

How are you coming along on the Farm?  These blocks bring my total count to 63 out of 111 blocks done.  I am finding it is a little harder to find blocks I want to make when I just have a few minutes to sew since I have made a lot of the easier blocks.  But it is still a fun project and I am excited to see what happens when it's done.

WIP Wednesday

First off I want to say I don't know how those of you with young kids do it.  We have been helping out a friend who is having a bit of a hard time and part of that package is a 2 year old every other weekend and a few days a week.  Now I love "monkey" almost as much as I imagine I will love my own child someday but man does she cut into some serious sewing time.  So I am very slowly making progress on some projects on the days that she isn't staying at the house.

I only managed to squeak out one Farmer's Wife Block in the last 2 weeks which means I am behind schedule again but I'm hoping that I will be able to knock out a few this weekend.

Cats and Mice Block #17

I am still working on sewing together my hexagons by hand which is another very time consuming project.  But it is pretty relaxing until you start to get a callus on your finger.  Yeah I'm one of those who refuses to wear a thimble.  I can't explain it they just feel weird.  But I've never been a fab of gloves or anything like that either so I guess my hands are like my feet, they like to be free.

Hand Sewn Hexagons Progress

I've found at this point it's a little easier to sew clumps together and then add the clumps to the main piece which is why it is such a strange shape but hey it seems to be working for me.

The last little project I worked on was this quilt top for Nichol.  A group from the Old Red Barn Quilt Along Group broke off to create traveling quilts this year.  I am in a group that is doing a round style quilt.  So I started with Nic's middle which was the pinwheels inside of the brown boarder.  I changed my plan about a million times but this is where I ended up.

I added the yellow boarder with floating pinwheels.

I wanted to make a ton of pinwheels but I was afraid it would be too busy so I went a little minimalistic and I hope she will really like it.  It did give me the chance to write my first ever tutorial for that patchwork pinwheel in there.  You can find that here.  I also made cornerstone blocks using one of the patterns from the Farmer's Wife Book because Nichol had used cornerstones in her round I thought she might like to keep that going. 

I think the hardest part about this group for me is that there is no real direction.  I think everyone wanted to leave it open ended so the biggest restriction so far has been a request to stay with a color scheme.

I borrowed this photo from Nichol because this is where she ended.

This is the next top that I get to work on and I have to admit I am at a total loss right now as to what to add next.  Any suggestions?

Well that's a look at what I'm working on.  Be sure to head over to Lee's to check out what everyone else is up to on this WIP Wednesday.