.: Farmer's Wife Friday - week 3 :.

Here we are at the end of the third week of the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Sew-a-Long.  In happy news, I am up to date!  Seven blocks down, a trifling 92 to go, we are looking good.

This week we met Belle, and Coral.  I'm continuing with my plan of setting some blocks on point, and some blocks squared - depending on which looks best to me.

First up was Belle.  Oh good grief, Belle.  To this point in time, I have successfully avoided sewing any y-seams, ever.  But with Belle, my luck ran out.  I was merrily paper-piecing away, and went to join the top and bottom sections to the middle sections and thought 'whaaaaat the?!'.  I had a little panic, popped the Belle sections back into the folder, and we spent a few days apart.  I got a little advice from Melissa (who is this week's guest blogger for Belle), and carefully read through these two tutorials from two of my paper-piecing heroes, Penny and Kerry.

Then it was time for the y-seam showdown.

If you look closely (not too closely, don't put your specs on) at the inside corners of the purple, girls-reading sections, you'll notice that the seams are a little woofly.  That would be because I had to hand-stitch them to finish the seam.  So - I have not yet actually, really and truly conquered y-seams.  The gauntlet has been thrown down, and the game is on. 

Yesteday saw Angie announce block number 24, Coral.  I liked Coral, with her much more straight-forward combination of rotary cutting and Marti Michell template-using.  In fact, I feel like I've finally 'clicked' with Marti's templates with Coral - she was really quick and easy to sew together.  And I managed to squeeze in a little fussy-cutting from the gorgeous Lizzy House's latest line The Lovely Hunt.  

Coral could well be my favourite block so far.

The rabbits and the pheasant - just the sweetest.

Are you all keeping up with the sew-along?  How are you feeling about it?  I know life will get even busier as the school term progresses, so I'm at peace with keeping up while I can, and letting things slide a little later on.  The book and online tutorials will always be there to refer to when the sewing stars align. 

Here are the tutorial blog posts you can click on for this week:

Belle - Angie and Ms Midge

Coral - Angie and Erin

And here's the book you need if you would like to sew along too: The Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and the 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W RRP $28.99 - click here to purchase.  

And a 10% voucher for Fat Quarter Shop, using code FQSFARMERS, valid until 30 November 2015. 

Have a great weekend.  xoxo cat