It is the end of another month of working on the Farmer’s Wife Quilt. Above you will see all of the blocks completed in November excluding those that I worked on ahead of time at the CJMQG retreat a couple weeks ago.

We had three blocks to do this week. Luckily one of them was the simplest block in the book.

#79 Patience

Patience is made with the Kona Solids: Lime, Pea Pod, and Thistle.

Patience From Behind

#80 Patricia

Patricia is made with the Kona Solids: Sweet Pea and Tarragon.

Patricia From Behind

#39 Grandma

Grandma is made with the Kona Solids: Cabbage, Celery, and Dahlia.

Grandma From Behind

Process Photo of Grandma

I am linking up to the Farmer’s Wife Link Party over at Gnome Angel.

I am also linking up to the Monday Morning Star Count with Jessica over at Life Under Quilts.

This week we had two blocks to complete for the Farmer’s Wife Quilt Along.

#46 Jewel

Jewel was created with the Kona Solids: Pansy, Tarragon, and Lilac.

Jewel was completed at the CJMQG Retreat last weekend. She only took about four hours to do. I was surprised that one of the five blocks that I did to get ahead was chosen as one of the blocks of the week. After all, there were more than 80 blocks left to go.

#90 Sara

Sara was created with the Kona Solids: Purple, Amethyst, and Ivy.

Sara took about five and a half hours to do.

Sara from behind.

Here are a few process photos of Sara.

I am attending the Link up Party over at Gnome Angel.

I am also linking up with the Monday Morning Star Count with Jessica over at Life Under Quilts.

Our blocks for this week were #2 Aimee and #76 Nancy.

#2 Aimee

Aimee is made with the Kona Solids: Dahlia, Cabbage, and Heliotrope.

Aimee was quite a challenge because she had the smallest pieces yet. Those triangles were really tiny. I did find out though that I was able to baste them without pinning the fabric to the paper. I later tried this with the slightly larger triangles in Nancy and was successful basting them without pins as well.

I paid particular attention to the grain of the fabric in the central portion of Aimee. When I first started to cut pieces for blocks I used to align the right angles of triangles with the grain of the fabric. It was later that I realized that sometimes the hypotenuse needed to be aligned with the grain. Aimee presents an even greater challenge with the placement of the green triangles needing to be eyeballed to go along with the grain.

#76 Nancy

Nancy is made with the Kona Solids: Heliotrope and Dahlia.

Nancy is one of my favorite blocks so far.

This weekend I was in the unique position of attending a quilting retreat. I was at the Central Jersey Modern Quilt Guild annual fall retreat, which I attended last year. It is three days of stitching with friends in a hotel. It is a great way to get to know other guild members.

I was lucky enough to be sitting right next to someone who had been following my blog posts about this quilt with interest. So I got a lot of positive feedback about my progress during the weekend. I felt as if I was being cheered on, which really helped because of how slow it is working on these blocks with the EPP technique.

Going into the weekend I had Aimee finished. I completed Nancy over the weekend and five other blocks that I chose from among those not yet assigned. So I am a full five blocks ahead. Those blocks are pictured below, but I will not bother to name them at this time. They will make their solo appearances when they are assigned, and will be named at that point as well.

I will admit to choosing the block in the middle so I would have a feeling of accomplishment completing an easy block. I’m not in love with that one, and it may not even make its way into the final quilt. I am also not in love with the block on the bottom, but that may be because I did not provide enough contrast in the color choices.

Edit: A couple hours after posting this I discovered that the bottom block in the photograph above is the first block for this week. I am hoping that one of the others is chosen as the second block. That would blow my mind. What are the odds of choosing even one of them with so many blocks yet to go.

Mid way through the retreat the guild Instagram photographer walked about and posted some pictures. I was surprised to see the one below. I’m glad I tidied up just shortly before it was taken.

Photo Credit: Laura Bennet

I am linking up with the Link Up Party over at Gnome Angel.

This week was a difficult week with three blocks to complete, all of them with a lot of detail. Here they are in the order in which I completed them.

#1 Addie

Addie was made with the Kona Solids: Dahlia, Pansy, and Lime.

#57 Margaret

Margaret was made with the Kona Solids: Bright Periwinkle, Wisteria, and Peridot.

#62 Milly

Milly was made with the Kona Solids: Tarragon, Ivy, Dahlia, and Celery

Addie was the easiest of these three to complete. She had only 25 pieces compared to the 32 pieces in the other two blocks. Margaret was the second easiest because she did not require the nesting of eight tails except in one location. Milly brought back bad memories of Caroline. Milly had a total of five locations where it was necessary to nest eight tails.

I think of all the blocks I have completed so far I like Milly the best in terms of my selection of colors.

Our assignment for this week was to show five specific blocks. The game is Farmer’s Wife Bingo. The numbers called were 1, 8, 16, 24, and 94. You can see them above on a Kona Hunter Green background.

I am linking up with the Bingo Link Up Party over at Gnome Angel.

We have come to the end of the first month of the Farmer’s Wife QAL. In that time we have completed twelve blocks. I have displayed these blocks above on a dark background. I have a full bolt of Kona Hunter Green that I thought I would audition as a potential sashing color.

This week we had two blocks to make, #41 Granny, and #45 Jenny.

#41 Granny

Granny was made with the following Kona Solids: Pea Pod and O.D. Green.

Granny has the smallest pieces to date. They were challenging to baste because the fabric that was turned behind nearly met in the middle of the pieces because the pieces were so small. Granny would have been even more challenging if I had not chosen to do her with EPP. Those tiny squares are actually supposed to be two tiny triangles joined.

You can see that the basting stitches have been removed from the smaller shapes. This is possible to do because these shapes do not touch the outside of the block.

#45 Jenny

Jenny was made with the following Kona Solids: Raisin, Palm, and Limestone.

Here is the back of Jenny.

Working on Jenny prompted me to think a lot about value in my blocks. Raisin looks nearly black compared to the other violets. Limestone appears nearly white. Jenny has the highest contrast of any block so far. I really enjoy the subtle contrast in value between the Palm and the Raisin in the center of Jenny.

On the other hand, Granny has good contrast, but it is not extremely high contrast as with Jenny.

One thing I forgot to comment on last week was how I enjoyed using the 32 pound weight paper compared to 20 pound copy paper for making my paper pieces. I really like it and I will continue to use it. I think it allows me to obtain nice sharp corners without fear of distorting the shape. Heavier weight card stock would probably also be good, but then I might have some trouble piercing the paper with the needle.

The papers above were removed from the center of Granny.

The papers above were removed from the center of Jenny.

Although I prefer the photo at the beginning of this post for showing my progress for the month, I took the photograph above to share on Instagram because I needed a square format.

I am participating in the Link Up Party on Gnome Angel.