Sun Star Mini Quilt

 I had quite a few deadlines last week, but I'm happy to say I was able to meet all of them, whew! This Sun Star mini quilt for the Fab Little Quilt Swap was the biggest project on my list and I was so glad to get it off on the due date. My swap partner likes stars and either a rainbow theme or greens and aquas. Since green and aqua are my favs I chose that pallet.

The pattern I used is a paper piecing pattern called "Sun Star" from Craftsy. I really enjoyed the last one I made that was similar and finished this one in the same fashion with a patchwork squares border.

On the back I used a Riley Blake green chevron print which reminded me of the star points. For the quilting I outlined the star design and the border. Then I tried a couple of new techniques, pebble stitch and a loopy border design.

I am really starting to like paper piecing! The designs can be so complex and turn out so precise. The only downside is the fabric waste. But the better I get at the process, the less waste I have.

And a mini quilt is the perfect way to try out new quilting techniques. I think it turned out pretty well. :)

For the goodies I included a Moda Fandango "candy bar" stack, a Micron pen, colorful scissors, green and aqua washi tape, and a cute little sewing tin full of mints. I hope my partner enjoys it all!

Farmer's Wife Friday

Wow, did this Friday creep up on me fast! I had quite a few project due this week including my Modern Quilt Bee blocks and my FLiQS quilt. So I had to some sewing this week! But I told myself I wouldn't get behind on my FW blocks, so I managed to make a couple.

 I have to admit, I didn't (and still don't!) like this block. First of all it's one of those blocks with a million little template #13. If you are making this quilt, you know the template of which I speak. Basically it's a tiny little triangle. And you usually need tons of them. So cutting them out takes forever and piecing them with accuracy is nearly impossible! I had to take this out a couple of times and add more to the seams to shrink them a bit. It's still not perfect, but better than the start. The other thing about this block is the fabrics. I adore the yellow fabric with the red roses but somehow when I combine it with other fabrics it feels "heavy" to me. Maybe I just need to combine it with white to lighten it up. I don't know, this might be another re-do in the future.;)

I was on a yellow and red kick this week and I do like the way this block turned out. It's simple, easy to put together and I can never go wrong with my little strawberries and gingham. :)

Also, I found another inspirational Farmer's Wife quilt for me this week! Isn't it gorgeous!? It was made by Helen Philipps of the U.K. Her sashing is a very pale pink which I think sets the blocks off nicely. I just can't wait to be at this point in the process!


Where are you in your process? I'd love to see, please share your FW blog posts through the linky tool. Here's how:

• Use the linky tool and link your blog posts or flickr pictures of Farmer's Wife blocks.
• You must LINK back to this post within your post. You can also grab a Farmer's Wife Friday button (on the right side bar).
• Have fun reading all the posts! Don't forget, everyone loves a nice comment!

Next week I'll post my finished bee blocks and fliqs quilt! Have a great weekend!

Farmer's Wife Friday Inspiration!

Happy Friday! After a wonderful Spring Break vacation in Sedona last week, it's taken some time just to readjust to life again. Laundry, getting back into routine, you get the drill. :) Needless to say I was not able to get to my Farmer's Wife blocks this week. :( I just today was finally able to do a little sewing and that was to get going on my Fab Little Quilt Swap project. It's due next week! 

So this week I thought I would post a few finished Farmer's Wife quilts to keep you inspired! We can do this! I love that not everyone uses the exact pattern. There are different placements, border treatments and sizes.

 I think my favorite finished so far is by Krystyne of Pretty By Hand. It's actually similar to the colors in my quilt and I plan on using white sashing and red polka dot sashing squares. Isn't it gorgeous!? If you haven't visited her blog, GO, it's lovely and so inspiring.

 This version is recently finished by Amanda from Hey, Porkchop! She is one of the originators of the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along that got me started in this whole pursuit! I love how she made it more modern and interspersed grey blocks in between. Beautiful.

 I love the colors in this finish by City House Quilts. She bordered her blocks with white triangles. It gives it such a clean look. And some of the blocks on are point and some aren't which makes the quilt more interesting, just wonderful.

 Lori from Bee in my Bonnet finished her quilt recently. This is another favorite of mine. And I am totally planning on making one of Lori's barns as my quilt label on the back, so cute!

The last quilt I want to share is from Late to Create! I love the Fig Tree fabrics and her double scrapper border treatments. Just amazing! I hope these have inspired you to keep going, I know I want to go make my blocks!
Now it's your chance to share what you've been up to! Have Farmer's Wife blocks to share? Here are the rules:

• Use the linky tool and link your blog posts or flickr pictures of Farmer's Wife blocks.
• You must LINK back to this post within your post. You can also grab a Farmer's Wife Friday button (on the right side bar).
• Have fun reading all the posts! Don't forget, everyone loves a nice comment!

  Finally feeling caught up to our normal schedules and I'm hoping to have a busy sewing weekend so I have more to share next week! Happy Farming!

Farmer's Wife Friday!

Greetings from beautiful Sedona, AZ this Friday! My awesome in-laws invited us on their vacation to Sedona for our Spring Break. It has been such a relaxing week. The kids had their cousins to play with and we had no schedules, the best!

I mean really, being surrounded by this kind of beauty all week is just so amazing. If you've never been to Sedona, put it on your bucket list, it's one of our very favorite places. :) Thank you mom and dad!

 

   I have a couple of blocks to share with you this week! Ribbons was one of those designs that I didn't really love. I was tempted to flip the bottom row so it looked more like chevrons. But I decided that might make it too modern and I needed to leave it as is.

On the Rosebud block, how could I use anything but rose fabric? I love the contrast on this one.

I just can't believe I have finished 75 blocks! That means I only have 36 blocks to go, WOW!! That seems so doable to me! I am getting really excited. I'm already thinking about preparing my sashing strips, whoop!
How far along are you on your Farmer's Wife journey? Now's your chance to link up! Here's the drill:

• Use the linky tool and link your blog posts or flickr pictures of Farmer's Wife blocks.
• You must LINK back to this post within your post. You can also grab a Farmer's Wife Friday button (on the right side bar).
• Have fun reading all the posts! Don't forget, everyone loves a nice comment!

I look forward to hearing about your progress! We are saying goodbye to Sedona today but we are spending the weekend in Phoenix to celebrate my birthday girl who's turning 13! I cannot believe I'll have two teenagers, where does the time go? Have a great weekend!
 

Friday...Friday...Farmer's Wife Fri-day

(sorry is it stuck in your head now?) Man, did this week fly by! Probably because my girl's had Monday off of school and it always takes a few days to decompress from a vacation. I feel like my week's just getting started! In fact today I finally took my sewing machine out of its traveling cover to get some sewing done. BUT...I discovered that I had left my power cord at my parents house in Utah! Urg! I literally cried. Literally. I have a big pile of fun projects to sew up and no machine to do it with. My mom is shipping it to me tomorrow but it might not be here until Monday! And we are leaving on our second Spring Break on Sunday, so I guess I need to find some hand sewing projects to take with me.

While I was in Utah I was able to make one block. Actually I made it when I made last week's blocks. It's a good thing I did so I would have something to share today! This was one of those blocks I was excited to make. I tried it with a few different fabrics, but I also love using the polka dots and this blocks seemed to lend itself well to them. I also had to add some flowers to suit the name. Needless to say I love the result, you just can't go wrong with polka dots and florals.

Since I couldn't actually sew, I did cut out a few more blocks so I would be ahead of schedule for next week. My goal is to make at least two blocks a week and so far I have done that. I would love to make more than that, but with all the other projects I have, two seems to work for me right now.

Can't wait to see what blocks you have been working on, now's your chance to link up with me!

What you need to do is:

• Use the linky tool and link your blog posts or flickr pictures of Farmer's Wife blocks.
• You must LINK back to this post within your post. You can also grab a Farmer's Wife Friday button (on the right side bar).
• Have fun reading all the posts! Don't forget, everyone loves a nice comment! 

 Oh about our "second" Spring Break. Our kids have their spring break's on different weeks. The girls and I headed to Utah last week for their spring break. For my son's spring break we are all headed to Sedona, AZ! This is one of our favorite places and my in-laws generously invited us to come spend their vacation with them. So we get two spring breaks! Very excited. Just not looking forward to doing all that laundry again. :) 

Wednesday WIPs!

Whew! After being out of town for a whole week there is a lot to catch up on! Laundry of course is always first on the list. I'm one of those people who gets all unpacked and gets everything back in its place right away. So that creates a huge pile in the laundry room and gives me plenty of work to do that first day back. :)
I also thought I would be doing a ton of sewing while I was away, but that just didn't happen at all. So I have a lot of sewing to catch up on too! Here are a few of my projects in the works:

 My 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee blocks! This is the pattern I have chosen to use. It's from an old block booklet I have that uses all templates. I didn't really want to go the template route, so I got out my grid paper and made it into a paper piecing project. I comes together pretty easily even though paper piecing can be tricky! So this is block one and I need to make 4 more in different colorways.

 My girls' quilt! I finished the sashing around the flowers. I love that it helps each flower to stand on it's own. It was so tricky to place these blocks. I didn't want any of the same fabrics "touching" each other. Including the leaves, and centers. But that proved to be very difficult! In the end the leaves took precedence so none of them are across from each other, but there are a lot of diagonal "sames". I now need to add the borders and get her quilted! I've had a few ideas for that, but none that I'm really set on yet, still thinking it through.

I also have this quilt that really needs to be finished. It's a t-shirt quilt for my brother and tennis pro, Andy. It needs to be basting and quilted, but I haven't figured out how to quilt it yet. They are 15" squares, so I can't just quilt the sashing, I will have to quilt on the shirts, but I don't want to ruin their design either. So tricky! I would love to send this to a long arm quilter but I have yet to do that because of the cost. So this quilt has been sitting on the back burner for a little while, sorry Andy!

  The last project I really need to get going on is the FLiQS mini quilt. I have decided on this paper piecing pattern because my partner really likes stars and geometrics. The colors will be greens and blues. I did a similar quilt in the Doll Quilt 13 round and it was well received, so I'm going from there.
There are plenty of other projects in the works, but this should keep me busy for now.:) 

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday!

Oooh, I just heard the dryer buzzing, back to the laundry!