Farmers Wife in Red and White

As I was putting things away from Christmas I realized I did have a finish in 2014 my Red and White Farmers Wife quilt.

It was a cold rainy day but I carried it out onto the porch and managed to get a couple of pictures.

It would be nice to have a fence, a wall or anyplace I could hang my quilts to take pictures of the entire quilt.  It’s really quite a large quilt..
I made most of the blocks using the Marti Michell templates  while participating in a Farmers Wife sew along she held.  Joining in with a group seems to help keep me on track.
Happy Saturday
Nancy

Noah & Matilda Borders

I have spent the last several days working on my Noah and Matilda borders.

So many little pieces to prep. 

This is my work station with most of  the little tools I use.  I especially want you to notice the hi tech holder for my sizing  and brush.  I tend to use what ever works for me.

Warning this next picture may be a little frightening to see even after I touched it up a bit.

If you look under my appliqué pressing sheets ( actually I use a teflon oven sheet) you can see how badly my ironing board cover appears to be  scorched.

Those little irons get really hot so I have folded an old sheet and placed it under my teflon sheet to keep from damaging my actual ironing board cover.

Now that these bits were ready it was time to move on to the grapes. There are 204 little grapes in this border.

 Looking for a way to speed up the process I started going through my go dies and found one with a circle the size I needed.  So I used some heat resistant templar and cut out several circles.

I then began the process of stitching and turning circles.

Aren’t they cute all lined up in their crooked little lines?

With all the prep work completed I am stitching away on the borders now.  

To be honest I find the actual stitching a little boring.  The prep part is what I enjoy the most.  It’s kind of like working on a puzzle and once I have seen the picture I am ready for something else.

Maybe that’s why I have so many blocks and borders ready to stitch. Wink, Wink .

Some of you may have noticed I changed the top flower just a little.  I just couldn’t see me ever stitching so many of the original. They are so much smaller than they appear in this picture.

If you are like me and you don’t have enough projects let me tell you about a couple more.

Ester Aliu has an new free BOM called "Oma’s Blues" seen here and

Pearl P Pereira Designs is offering another free one "Bountiful Baskets" here.  

They are both real beauties.

Happy stitching,

Nancy

Calico Paradise

I bought this pattern from Dawn at Collector With A Needle in 2013 and started the quilt in July of that year.

You can read about my progress here.

My Calico Paradise top all assembled.

It was really a fun journey and I believe this is my all time favorite quilt.  I just loved the colors of the original so I choose to make mine as close as possible to the original makers quilt.

This is the first appliqué quilt I have stitched that wasn’t made up of a lot of different blocks and I was a little intimidated by the size of the center.  I have small hands and just kept wondering how I would ever hold so much fabric in my hands to stitch the pieces.

In the end it wasn’t a problem at all.  The pieces are large and everything went together smoothly.

Happy Stitching,
Nancy

Harrison Rose

Dawn and her daughter do such a great job creating patterns from antique quilts.  Over the last few years I have made several quilts from Collector With a Needle patterns.  It seems I have started a tradition without even realizing it.

The first was Feathered Tulip in Vases

That one went so well I  decided to make Calico Paradise. 

This Past year I started Noah and Matilda and have the center completed.  I do see a trend here.

Their latest pattern is Harrison Rose.

Harrison Rose is such a pretty pattern of an antique quilt  I felt like I really wanted to make it.  We wouldn’t want to break a tradition would we.

These are some of the fabrics I am going to use.  I have collected so many bubblegum pinks and this seemed like a good quilt to use some of them.

At first I thought about doing it in the traditional reds and greens or even some of my beautiful Kaffe fabrics but decided to go with the pinks.

I do think this pattern would be just beautiful made in some of the wonderful new fabrics.  The pieces are large enough to really show them off.  It’s just that I don’t have a large collection of them and I wanted to use fabrics I already had.

Harrison Rose has several options for the flower block.  This is the one I choose.

Dawns patterns are so well done.  The  blocks are full sized so you don’t have to have them enlarged and as an extra all the quilting designs from the original quilt are included.  To see any of these patterns just click on the  names of the quilts.

 Happy Stitching in this new year.
Nancy

Noah and Matilda

My month eleven Noah and Matilda blocks.

I finally got to use my ruler from Karen Kay Buckley.  It works really well.   I only had one problem.  The blocks were to be trimmed to 8.5” and the ruler would not go that small on the outside.  It would make an 8 inch block on the inside of the ruler so I had to make marks and use another ruler to trim the blocks adding 1/4” all around.  

I got so excited about putting all the blocks together I forgot to take individual pictures of the four blocks for month twelve.  They are the 6th blocks on rows 1, 2 and 4 and the first block on row 3.

My layout is a little different from the original.  Partly because I wanted as many blocks as possible to be upright and partly because I got so confused sewing them all together.  I always seem to have trouble putting together a top when the blocks are on point.

The borders are still left to do and I must begin work on them because they add so much to the quilt.

Once again Dawn has outdone herself with another beautiful pattern. You can see it here.

Happy Stitching,

Nancy

Flags of the American Revolution

Crescents of South Carolina

Star and moon setting blocks

Fort Moultrie Liberty Moon

It’s the first of the month so I am posting my blocks for December and linking up with Lori at Humble Quilts.
Thanks Lori for giving us easy blocks this month.
Wishing everyone a very Happy and Healthy New Year.
Nancy