Farmer's Wife 1930s QAL Blocks 9 & 10: Autumn and Ava

It's week 5 in the year of Farmer's Wife 1930s Quilt Along.   My block is Autumn and Wynn of Zakka Art has sewn up Ava.  Block 9, Autumn (p.168, letter p.133).

Fabric credits:

Kona Candy pink

Kona Citrus

Makower Spot On

Windham Playdate Diamond Flower Yellow

Autumn is a straightforward block, it's only the size of the pieces that gets fiddly.  As usual, I precut all my pieces before foundation piecing each section. For the large rectangles and the larger squares, I cut using the rotary cutting instructions on the CD but I made my pieces ½" larger on each edge.  The dimensions for the remaining shapes are below:

Rotary Cutting for Foundation Paper Piecing

Small half square triangles: for each colour, cut (4) 2 ¼" squares, sub-cut each once diagonally to make 2 half square triangles from each square.

Large half square triangles: cut (2) 3 ½" squares, sub-cut each once diagonally to make 2 half square triangles from each square.

Centre tiny square: cut (1) 1 ½" square

Small rectangles: cut (4) 1 ½" x 2 ¼" rectangles

Top tips for this block

• Have a strong contrast between the fabric used for the background and all the other fabrics used.
• Use a water based glue stick- I use Sewline- to stick the first piece of each section
• Chain piece where sections are repeated
• Mark the centre of the outer long narrow sections (A and B) in the seam allowance before joining them onto the centre section to get good alignment.

The letter for Autumn is from a mother of four and her a precious half hour when her boys are either at school or busy and she has a little siesta, or nanna nap as I prefer to call it.   I think a lot of you know how much I love music and seek out new things to listen too.  British artist/.composer Max Richter has a new concept album called sleep: an eight hour lullaby to listen to whilst you prepare to sleep.  He did a special performance for BBC radio 3 at the Wellcome Collection where the audience had beds.  If you can listen to BBC appear radio, it's still available- all 8 hours- for the next 14 days. 

Block 10 is Ava (p.169, letter p.146),  Wynn has sewn a gorgeous block and shared some tips and her favourite hand sewing equipment in her post. She has an important point about flipping your templates which also applies to foundation piecing, something to remember for future blocks that don't have vertical, horizontal and diagonal symmetry.   Here's my version.

Fabric credits:
Windham Tiger Lily, Butterflies Brown
Atsuko Matsuyama, Ginham Ribbon Orange
Penny Rose Fabrics Hope Chest Blossom Yellow

• Use the hashtags  Don't forget to use #fw1930sqal on Instagram and the Flickr group if you like to share there.  
• For individual blocks, you can use #autumnblock and #avablock on Instagram. are using these hash tags, #fw9autumn,  #fw10ava, I'm using both hashtag systems.
• You can also copy and paste links to any blog posts you do on these blocks in the comments and I'd love to visit and take a look. 
• I have a busy work day tomorrow so my usual periscope.tv/@verykb short broadcast might not happen but I am hoping it will and it will be around 2.15-2.30pm GMT today indwell be available for 24 hours to replay before it disappears! Link will be in my twitter feed @verykb and I'll post on Instagram and twitter about 15 minutes before it goes out.   If I make it, I'll be talking about symmetry and accuracy.

Please note:  I have linked to my sponsors on items bought through them and elsewhere for anything that has come from other shops.

You can join the quilt-along at any time, all the posts are here for you to catch up with.  Back next Monday with Erin and blocks 11 and 12.