Farmer’s Wife 1930’s – Aimee and Nancy

 

I know I say this often, but the blocks released this week are just so sweet! I am in love with them both, and each week I am getting more excited about how the finished quilt will look.

First up we have Aimee. She really needs to be Foundation Paper Pieced, but if you haven’t tried it yet, never fear. There is a wealth of tutorials out there for help. First off, I wrote an extensive two part Foundation Paper Piecing tutorial a few weeks ago. Cat includes a tutorial in her blog post from last week. Angie’s tutorial for Aimee includes a different method, using freezer paper which eliminates the need to tear the paper out afterwards. Rachel from Wooden Spoon Quilts has previously posted a tutorial using this same method.  The talented Nadra from Eliis & Higgs has also guest blogged Aimee this week, with a tutorial in French AND English! I just love her colour sense, if you haven’t seen her blocks, go look at them. So there’s lots of help out there, don’t be scared!

 

FW2 Aimee Cassandra Madge

 

My Aimee turned out so sweet! I love the mix in the book of print and solids so I duplicated it among my chosen fabrics and 30’s palette. Following my own usual steps for Foundation Paper Piecing I found the only trouble spot was lining up the points of the centre X when joining those two pieces together. I used a pin through the middle of the two to help line things up, then clipped the two sections together before sewing. It’s close enough to perfect that I doubt I’ll ever notice it again.

 

Farmer's Wife 1930's Cassandra Madge

 

You will also notice that my edge points and corners around the red section are pretty great too, so I’m a bit smug about this block. I will show you my secret weapon though….

 

Farmer's Wife 1930 Aimee Cassandra Madge

 

One neatly pressed back. So often the way our seams sit or are pressed makes the world of difference to how things line up and sit flat on the front. However it’s also probably the most overlooked part of quilting, so I am on a mission to make people pay attention to their seams!

 

Secondly this week we had Nancy, a deceptively simple pieced block that I think would make a very dramatic repeated motif in a quilt all on its own.

If you missed it, Angie’s tutorial for Nancy is HERE, and the guest bloggers for Nancy are Raylee from Sunflower Quilting and Sherri from A Quilting Life.

 

FW76 Nancy Cassandra Madge

 

Nancy seemed to be the perfect block to break out this sweet floral fabric – it’s a little bit more widely spaced than many of the prints in this Pam Kitty Morning collection, with small bouquets and little half rings of blooms scattered around. I had to fussy cut the central square, but the other pieces were just cut as the fabric lay. I hate fabric wastage!

 

Farmer's Wife 1930 Nancy Cassandra Madge

 

Here she is in a bit more closeup, and without bragging, I wanted to show you my block intersections and points which are perfectly lined up. You can guess why already, can’t you? It’s all about what’s happening on the BACK of the block!

 

Farmer's Wife 1930 Nancy Cassandra Madge

 

Reading down diagonally from top left to bottom right, as I pieced the two side triangles (top centre and left centre) onto the top left corner section, I pressed those seams to the outside. The same for the bottom right corner section – the side triangles (bottom centre and right centre) are attached, then pressed outwards. Next I attached the two corner units of the bottom left corner and top right corner onto my centre square. You will notice that those two seams attaching to the fussy cut square are pressed inwards towards the square.

This took some forethought and planning as I was putting the sections together and trotting between machine and pressing board. However that small amount of mental effort paid off in spades as I joined the central diagonal section to those two corner sections. I was able to massage the seams and nest them securely so that the green rectangles perfectly interlocked around that middle square.

As always, I credit my beautiful flying geese blocks and triangles to my Marti Michell templates, which I couldn’t work without.

 

 

So, did you sew along ok this week? Are you finding it as much fun as I am? If you are having specific trouble with any block, give us a shout out and we will try to solve your problems!

 

 

 Happy Crafting - Cassie.

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