Farmer's Wife Quilt Along: Blocks 75 & 76, Nan and Nancy

Welcome back to the Farmer's Wife quilt-along, I hope you are all feeling refreshed after our little break and ready for more blocks!   The blocks that we have remaining feel like such a small part of the total book, completion does not feel far away!   Block 75, Nan (p.234  letter p.154) is an easy block to get back into the book although the accompanying farmer's wife letter is heartbreaking.

Fabric Credits
Suzoki Koseki for Yuwa red Paris daisy (Out of print)
Marcus Brothers 1930s repro school house print (OOP, gift from Chase!)

I'm not religious so I'm not sure if I will include this block in the final quilt- I may substitute with something more personal.  I did enjoy picking the fabrics though, I felt these two really went together!    If you would like an alternative block for any of your blocks, there's a great selection in The Splendid Sampler project by Jane Davidson and Pat Sloan.  I'm contributing a block in mid October and I might sneak that into my Farmer's Wife quilt

Rotary Cutting dimensions
These dimensions are slightly bigger than you need so they are ready for foundation paper piecing.  They are not actual size.  If you are a beginner, you can cut them even larger to give you more wiggle room!  Some squares are cut on point to make triangles and avoid bias edges in troublesome places like the outer edges of the block.

Cross
A1: Cut (1) 2 x 3 ½" rectangle
A5: Cut (1) 2 ½" x 6 ¼" rectangle
B1: Cut (1) 2 x 4" rectangle

Background
A2, A3: cut (1) 3 ¼" square on point, sub-cut along diagonal to yield 2 half-square triangles
B2, B3: cut (1) 4 ¼" square on point, sub-cut along diagonal to yield 2 half-square triangles
A4, B4: cut (1) 2 ¼" square, sub-cut along diagonal to yield 2 half-square triangles
A6, A7: cut (1) 3 ¼" square, sub-cut along diagonal to yield 2 half-square triangles

Top Tips for Foundation Piecing this Block

• Pre cut all pieces
• Use a water based glue stick e.g. Sweden, to stick the first piece of fabric on each section
• When adding A6 and A7, align the right angle corner of the fabric triangle so it is inline with the right angle corner of the paper

• When joining sections A to B, first find the centre point on the long diagonal line on A and B, pinch to make a temporary fold.  Use a water based glue stick to hold this in place.  You could also glue the rest of the seam
• For perfect alignment of sections A and B, mark the seam allowances at the end of the seam on each section- this will create precise seam points for you to start and end the seam
• Press section seam to one side

For block 76, Nancy (p. 235  letter p. 42) Jo from A Life in Lists is guest posting, see what colours she's chosen in her hand pieced block here.   I knew I wanted to add an extra colour so I picked a background fabric with two colours running through it as well as the main and used those as solids to accent the triangle and rectangles.    

Fabric Credits
Kona Carnation
Kona Sour Apple
Gracie's School House Classic Dottie Blossoms
{Please note that on both blocks, I link to sponsor shops for fabric bought from then and elsewhere for other fabrics}

I stitched up a couple of nine-patch blocks to add to my collection.  I pick the fabrics for these very quickly and enjoy the changes in scale with some of the smaller ditsy repro prints against the 1" gingham squares.

• You can share your farmer's wife quilt blocks with the hashtags #fw1930sqal and for these blocks either #nanblock or #nancyblock as well as #fw75Nan, #fw76Nancy
• If you want me to take a look at your blocks, tag me on Instagram, I'm @verykerryberry or comment here and paste in a link to your blog
• There's a Flickr group you can add to here.  All my Farmer's Wife 1930s blocks can be seen in this album and my 9-patch blocks in this album. 

Next Monday Justine will be returning as a guest blogger!  See you then x

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