Aiming for Accuracy Progress - Week 10

This is starting to look like it might someday become an actual quilt. I admit I've had my doubts about my fabric choice. Especially when I see the fabulous, coordinated blocks others are making. I'm still a little nervous that mine may turn out having too many colors, not enough balance.. The original that Mishka is making looks like stained glass or watercolors. It is so cool. As soon as I chose orange rather than black for my contrast fabric I lost the opportunity for stained glass. Turns out I actually like orange so that's ok.

I'm really pleased at how much better my seams and points are since I started. I'm learning a lot, often by making mistakes. I just have to remember:

"If you are not making mistakes you are not making progress."

 

 I hope we get to see all the finished projects at the end. Most of them are going to be Fabu-lisious!

Farmers Wife - August 2013

These are the blocks assigned for the Farmer's Wife August Block of the Month Quilt. OK so these are MOST of the blocks. I'm short by three. I set aside the one's with odd angles until I'm more comfortable with them. I'm getting better at angles. I can nail a right triangle on the first try most of the time. I'm just going to let the blocks with odd angles sit for a while. I know eventually it will "click" in my brain and I'll wonder what the problem was in the first place. At least I hope that is what happens...and soon. I just picked up the kit for September. It made me want to cry a little. 

Here is the link to the originals over at American Quilting.

The Farmers Wife - May 2013

This is my second set of Farmer's Wife blocks complete. Block numbers 36 - 46 assigned for completion in May. I'm not sure I'm getting better at paper piecing. The more blocks I finish the more I think, "Ima hafta redo this one...and this one".  If you want to see what they are supposed to look like follow this link to American Quilters.

Can you see where I sewed a wrong piece into one of the blocks? I didn't see it until I hung the block on the wall. My hope is the quilt fairy will fix it so it is not noticeable when it is set into a quilt with 100 of it's sisters. With 64 one-inch pieces in the block I wasn't about to pull it apart...again.

(Update 29 Aug 2013) Someone at the quilt store today said: "If you can't see a mistake from the back of a galloping horse, it don't matter." I laughed along with the rest of the group and felt better about my error.

Aiming for Accuracy Weeks 5 and 6

Here are my recent additions to the Aiming for Accuracy Quilt along. 127 photos were posted in the quilt along gallery last week. There were participants from 8 countries, 32 states and 4 Canadian provinces. It makes me feel part of something international.

Farmers Wife - February 2013

Congratulations to me! I have completed the 11 Farmer's Wife quilt blocks which were assigned for February. I haven't been doing them in order as presented in the book even though that is how they are kitted for the block of the month club. If one strikes my fancy I'll do it (and conversely if it looks too hard I'll skip it.) But I confess I did the last two of these just so I could say I'd finished at least one full month's assignment.

The silver lining about starting six months behind the rest of the group is that I have six months worth of fabric swatches to mix and match with rather than just one month at a time. Most of the time I've liked the colors they have chosen but sometimes I've switched it up just for fun. You can see the originals here. Tell me what you think. 

Flannel boards and other mysteries

Crafting with the cgf's ( my crafty girlie friends) last night I took stuff to make quilt design boards. Of course the cgf's don't quilt so they were  polite but uninterested. When JuJu's daughter asked what I was making I told her they were quilt block design boards. She didn't know what that was so I explained they are flannel boards for assembling quilt blocks. She did not know what a flannel board was. Really?!? I guess we now use  magnets when we are storytelling to children. In all fairness, I don't think she knew what a quilt block was either.

But I digress. Here is a tutorial for the design boards. I f you are making a quilt with a billion little pieces, such as the Farmer's Wife quilt, you'll wish you had six of these awesome little beauties. They are easy and nearly free to make.

Sad Note: Unfortunately, once again I am unable to supply a photo. The Hub is fishing in Alaska this week. He took the camera. Not only did he take it fishing, but he also took it for an unplanned swim in the Kenai on the first day there. My birthday is on Sunday, maybe I'll get a new camera.