2018 Finishes - Hourglass & Rails - #53

Everybody who reads about my projects and quilts, know that I'm  a follower of Bonnie Hunter at her blog Quiltville.  Every year around June/July, she puts out a new Leader Ender project.  I combined two of her years blocks to make this quilt.

Year 2016 was the pinwheel block and year 2017 was the rails block.  I chose to alternate the two blocks and came up with this quilt.

This quilt is made with 30's reproductions prints, and there is not duplicate within each block.  So, in essence, there in one block in a pinwheel and one block in a rail using the same print.  But, it is really very scrappy.  It measures 84" X 102".

The sun did not do justice of this quilt.  This is a close up of a corner of the different blocks.  I get all my quilts done in a stipple pattern by my long armer quilter.  It is very reasonable, and looks great on most of my common quilts.  

I chose a very pretty pink tone on tone to match the period pink colors.  I used it also for the binding.

Size: 84" x 102"

Fabric Lines Used:  30's Reproduction Prints

Colors:  Red, Green Yellow, blue, pink

Pattern: 2016 Pinwheels and 2017 Rails Leaders Enders 

Designer:  Bonnie Hunter

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Nelson

Year Began: 2016

Year Completed: 2018

2018 Finishes - Farmer's Wife #52

Going back to July 2011, another blogger started a quilt along doing the Farmer's Wife sampler quilt.  This was really popular around that time,  and several bloggers and local quilt shops were doing it either as a quilt along or a BOM.  I had already purchased the book several months earlier (you can purchase one here on Amazon, or anywhere else you want to get a copy.  The local library might have one too.  This sampler is by Laurie Aaron Hird, and has a total of 111 sampler blocks.  The book comes with an accompanying CD rom with all of the templates.  Marti Michell also has most of the templates in acrylic to use with this sampler.

In the book, the first half of the book shows a completed block along with a letter from 1920's wives that inspired each block.  The second half of the book has a page for each block, showing cutting instructions and construction diagrams.  

I jumped all in, really excited.  I printed all the templated out on card stock, cut them out, and started cutting out each block. I blogged about each block I made.  I was so into this sampler, that I opted to do it in two separate color ways.  One in civil war reproductions and the other with a fabric line called Breath of Avignon by American Jane from Moda fabrics.

I used both the acrylic templates and the card stock templates to get each block, then placing the cut pieces in an individual zip lot sandwich baggie for construction at a later date.   Little did I know, until I was in too deep of construction, that the card stock templates were copied at normal printing (which is at about 98%) instead of setting my printer to print them at 100%.   So, many of my blocks were off up to a quarter of an inch.

Some of my blocks came out 6.5 inches and some came out at 6.0 inches.  Panic time!!!  I gave it some serious thought.  One, do I trash the whole project and move on, wasting all that fabric, or two figure out how to make it all work together. 

I took option 2.  I took the framing fabric and added an additional 1/2" to the blocks that were too small, and then framed all the blocks according to the directions.  Anyone looking at it would not see the correction.  It takes only me to know what happened and the fix.  Especially after it was quilted, there is no glaring or even an easily noticeable fix to the error.

I am still working on how to fix the other color way to get that quilt done.  I am guessing this one will fall under my 2019 Finishes.  

To read about my finished quilt on the blogger who started the quilt along, please go here.

Here are some up close pictures of the different blocks and the finished framing and cornerstones, and you can't tell.  

I opted not to add any borders other than the offsetting triangles and bound it with the same fabric I used in framing the blocks.

I tried to get a picture of all the blocks used in the sampler.  Just a note about the blocks done in this sampler.  Remember they are only 6.5" square, and some of them had up to 65 pieces per block.  Sometimes it would take about 2 to 3 hours per block to make.  

This quilt requires lots of time and planning.  

Warmest...

Size: 72" x 84"

Fabric Lines Used:  Civil War Reproductions

Colors:  Black Gold, Orange, Green, red, blue, purple, yellow

Pattern:  The Farmer's Wife

Designer:  Laurie Arron Hird

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Nelson

Year Began: 2011

Year Completed: 2018

Bloggers' Block-a-palooza Quilt Along

Back in January 2011, there was a Blogger's Quilt Along called "Block-a-plooza".  It featured 16 bloggers, who designed a block.  Each week one of the 16 bloggers would post their block and in the end you ended up with sixteen 12" blocks and then they provided three different quilt top settings to finish the Quilt Along.  The host of this quilt along was Quilt Dad, and you can find the original post by clicking Block-a-palooza and it will take you to the page listing all of the sixteen bloggers and the links to the blocks on their respective blogs.  Some of the links are still working with the patterns to each block, and some are not in existence.  If you really want any of the patterns that are missing and you are unable to get them, let me know, and I will email them to you.

I managed to keep up each week and made all of the sixteen blocks.  The fabric that was used is Moda's Sunkissed.  I believe this is my all time favorite fabric line of Moda.  This is the second quilt I have made using this line.  Remember I also used it in making the Little Birdie Stitches quilt.  You can read about this quilt here.  And I have another quilt that I have on my to do list using this line using a pattern called postage stamp.  Probably more about this one later in the month of April.

This is a collage of the blocks as I didn't want to take up gobs of space.  You get the idea of what the blocks are all about that are going into this quilt.

I chose the option of the quilt top lay out that has a large (24" X 54") appliquéd center.  This will make the overall quilt size about 60" X 90".  Which is a rather large quilt, but I am tired of small twin sized quilts, when I have queen and king sized beds in my home.  

Here is the appliquéd center that I worked on this afternoon and evening.  Right now the pieces are just bonded and pinned onto the center white fabric.  I will have to machine blanket stitch the pieced down permanently sometime next week.  Then I will have the task of cutting out the sashing, and borders and put it all together into the quilt top.

It's kinda whimsical to me, and I really like the colors.

Warmest...