A new year means new projects and yesterday I started two! Both are sampler quilts. Let me explain...
About 18 months ago I decided to make a quilt for my Uncle. He had seen my Farmer's Wife quilt top and spent ages looking at it in great detail. When someone shows that much interest in a quilt it's not a hard decision to want to make one for them. Add in the fact that he has a habit of falling asleep on the sofa and it's easy. While he was there we worked out what size quilt he would need, and for Christmas I asked for the book of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler - I wanted to stick to 6" blocks and he really liked the jewel colours you get from using batiks but I was bored of the Farmer's Wife by this point. In February 2013 I bought the black batik background. And then I ignored it. Other projects took priority.
Meanwhile I fell in love with a range of fabrics this time last year - Architextures by Caroline Friedlander. So much so that after ordering and playing with a fat quarter bundle, I ordered, and hoarded, a half-yard bundle - just waiting for the perfect quilt design. What actually happened is Caroline Friedlander brought out Botanics, and I bought another half-yard bundle. Meanwhile, I was missing the Farmer. Over Christmas it hit me - these fabrics, with fairly small scale prints and a rainbow of colours, would be perfect as a sampler quilt - just add in some coordinating Kona solids...
I'm going to work on these two quilts in tandem. I need 76 blocks for my Uncle's Quilt and all of these will come from the Bridal Sampler (which contains a choice from about 140 blocks). For my Architextures and Botanics quilt I will make blocks until one of three things happens: I get bored, I run out of fabric, or the quilt becomes unmanageable! So for every block I make from the Bridal Sampler for my Uncle, I will make the same block in Architextures/Botanics, but I'm also going to be making quite a lot of blocks from the Farmer's Wife quilt with these fabrics - along with any other block I like the look of and will work as a 6" block.
Does that make sense?
And what's more there is a Flickr Group for Farmer's Wife in 2014 and yesterday was a communal sewing day. Like I needed the excuse. I made 9 Architextures and Botanics blocks, 4 Bridal Sampler blocks, and just so she didn't feel left out, 2 Dear Jane blocks. These are so addictive!
So, from the Farmer's Wife book I made block 2: Autumn Tints
Block 7: Birds in the Air (rotary cut)
Block 31: Evening Star (rotary cut)
Block 71: Puss in the Corner (rotary cut)
Block 98: Waterwheel (rotary cut)
Block 111: Wrench (rotary cut)
Wrench is the same as Churn Dash in the Bridal Sampler book
And Block 21 Contrary Wife is in both books (rotary cut)
I also made 54-40 (really odd name) in both fabric-ways from the Bridal Sampler book (rotary cut and foundation pieced)
And Amethyst (foundation pieced).
And so Jane didn't feel left out, I flipped to the end of the book and picked two relatively straight forward rotary cut blocks: M-5: Mother's Point in Reminisce by Art Gallery.
And M-12: Hopscotch in Botanics from Caroline Friedlander.
It feels like a productive weekend and I love working on these blocks!
About 18 months ago I decided to make a quilt for my Uncle. He had seen my Farmer's Wife quilt top and spent ages looking at it in great detail. When someone shows that much interest in a quilt it's not a hard decision to want to make one for them. Add in the fact that he has a habit of falling asleep on the sofa and it's easy. While he was there we worked out what size quilt he would need, and for Christmas I asked for the book of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler - I wanted to stick to 6" blocks and he really liked the jewel colours you get from using batiks but I was bored of the Farmer's Wife by this point. In February 2013 I bought the black batik background. And then I ignored it. Other projects took priority.
Meanwhile I fell in love with a range of fabrics this time last year - Architextures by Caroline Friedlander. So much so that after ordering and playing with a fat quarter bundle, I ordered, and hoarded, a half-yard bundle - just waiting for the perfect quilt design. What actually happened is Caroline Friedlander brought out Botanics, and I bought another half-yard bundle. Meanwhile, I was missing the Farmer. Over Christmas it hit me - these fabrics, with fairly small scale prints and a rainbow of colours, would be perfect as a sampler quilt - just add in some coordinating Kona solids...
I'm going to work on these two quilts in tandem. I need 76 blocks for my Uncle's Quilt and all of these will come from the Bridal Sampler (which contains a choice from about 140 blocks). For my Architextures and Botanics quilt I will make blocks until one of three things happens: I get bored, I run out of fabric, or the quilt becomes unmanageable! So for every block I make from the Bridal Sampler for my Uncle, I will make the same block in Architextures/Botanics, but I'm also going to be making quite a lot of blocks from the Farmer's Wife quilt with these fabrics - along with any other block I like the look of and will work as a 6" block.
Does that make sense?
And what's more there is a Flickr Group for Farmer's Wife in 2014 and yesterday was a communal sewing day. Like I needed the excuse. I made 9 Architextures and Botanics blocks, 4 Bridal Sampler blocks, and just so she didn't feel left out, 2 Dear Jane blocks. These are so addictive!
So, from the Farmer's Wife book I made block 2: Autumn Tints
Block 7: Birds in the Air (rotary cut)
Block 31: Evening Star (rotary cut)
Block 71: Puss in the Corner (rotary cut)
Block 98: Waterwheel (rotary cut)
Block 111: Wrench (rotary cut)
Wrench is the same as Churn Dash in the Bridal Sampler book
And Block 21 Contrary Wife is in both books (rotary cut)
I also made 54-40 (really odd name) in both fabric-ways from the Bridal Sampler book (rotary cut and foundation pieced)
And Amethyst (foundation pieced).
And so Jane didn't feel left out, I flipped to the end of the book and picked two relatively straight forward rotary cut blocks: M-5: Mother's Point in Reminisce by Art Gallery.
And M-12: Hopscotch in Botanics from Caroline Friedlander.
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