Farmer’s Wife 1930’s – Georgia, Mrs Keller, Bea and Charlotte

 

Whilst I have been busy with some customer quilting, I stole some time over the weekend to get caught up with my Farmer’s Wife blocks – I was putting these off but actually they were a lot easier than I expected. Let’s have a look at them one by one.

 

 

Sweet little Georgia, like a candy lolly. To streamline my process, I kept my fabric choices very similar to the ones from Laurie’s book, working within the fabrics that I have put aside for this quilt. I must admit to being a little bored with my selection but I have some new ones one the way for my next batch!

If you missed out when Georgia was first released, you can find Angie’s tutorial for it HERE, Marti Michell’s tutorial, including her neat little cutting trick to remove a seam HERE, and the guest blogger for Georgia was Rachel from Wooden Spoon Quilts, her lovely Georgia can be found HERE.

 

 

Using the Marti Michell “S” template made cutting Georgia a breeze, and she went together very neatly with the seam intersections lining up nicely without too much effort.

 

 

I did press more seams open than normal because of the triangles making little bulky seam points. Other than that, Marti’s suggestion to treat this block as 3 rows instead of 5 rows was excellent advice and sewing it all up was easy.

 

 

Next we have Mrs Keller – a vision in pink! I love using this Pam Kitty Morning dark pink print as a “solid” in these blocks – the print is not busy and gives you the best of both worlds. You can find Angie’s tutorial for Mrs Keller HERE, Marti Michell’s version HERE and the guest blogger, the insanely talented Peta from She Quilts A Lot (and another of those amazing Australian quilters) has posted her version HERE. My mouth dropped open a bit when I saw how Peta had perfectly lined her stripes up across this block. That alone deserves the insanely talented description!

 

 

As usual, I nested the seams for the little 9-patch block in the middle of Mrs Keller, and the rest of the block is just simply a modified flying geese block and 4 half square triangles. Very straightforward sewing, especially when cut with the Marti Michell “S” templates.

 

 

Next released was Charlotte, which I thought would be much harder to make than it was. I also loved all the possibilities this block presented for fabric choice If you look through the Facebook group album for Charlotte there is an amazing amount of variety used. I kept things simple with matching prints and toning solids, but juxtaposed against each other. As I am not making my quilt on point, I did sew up the middle diagonal seam, however Marti suggests leaving this block unjoined if you might want to use it at the end or start of an on point row.

To find the tutorials for Charlotte, Angie’s is HERE, Marti Michell’s is HERE, and the guest blogger Sherri of A Quilting Life has her tutorial HERE. Sherri’s fabric and print choices are just so cute!

 

 

Marti uses a combination of templates for Charlotte, however I didn’t have the M template set and was too lazy to print off the templates from the book, so I got a little inventive. I used the S98a length, cutting triangles out at both ends to make the smaller outer triangles that Marti uses M77 to cut. I used S99 and S100 to cut the two small corner squares and the smallest triangle points. Finally I used template B11 to cut the other large triangles, including the trapezoid pieces of background that fit between the two contrast sections. Using the angles of what I had already constructed, I was able to cut the B11 triangles down to fit perfectly after each one had been sewn into place.

 

 

Although my centre points aren’t 100% perfect, if I didn’t tell you, you’d never notice. I would definitely call this a win for ingenuity.

 

 

My final block to share is Bea, the sweet little basket. I couldn’t resist following Laurie’s colour scheme for Bea, adding in this adorable Lecien print. You will find Angie’s tutorial for Bea HERE, Marti Michell’s version HERE and the utterly adorable French quilter Nat, from Works of Nat was the guest blogger for this block. Her version of Bea is HERE.

 

 

Bea is another of the blocks that require the M series of templates that I do not have. Again, I substituted triangle B11 which is slightly larger than it needs to be, and then I trimmed them down to size. Firstly the centre one between the two handle points. I lined up the TOP of the triangle with the top of the handles, knowing that the bottom edge would extend past the handle. After sewing and pressing both sides on, I used my ruler across the angle caused by the bottom of the handles to trim the triangle down to size. For the other two large triangles, I stitched the long bottom edge exactly centred in the seam, using the sides of the block to trim to size as needed.

 

 

I left this triangle untrimmed, so that you could get an idea of this technique. It overhung more one way than the other, as I was piecing in a hurry, but I still can easily use my 6 1/2″ ruler to square this block up and that excess will be removed. Meanwhile I saved myself a lot of hassle with templates and the odd measurements this current crop of blocks is sprouting.

 

 

You will notice a 5th block in the collection above that I haven’t discussed with you. It is my own interpretation of May, constructed in a unique way using paper piecing and completely without Y seams. I am going to call it June, as it is the logical step that comes after May.

 

 

 

Keep your eyes out for the tutorial and pattern for June, which is coming soon!

 

 

 

**Disclaimer** I received the Marti Michell templates as part of my participation in the sew along – all opinions are my own.

 

 

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