Kona Candy Green
Moda Garden Project, Vintage Floral Pear Yellow
Penny Rose Fabrics Hope Chest 2 Hearts Purple
Robert Kaufman Fabrics, Penny and Friends, Square Dance Camelia
I thought I'd share a little about how I choose fabrics for blocks. For this one I followed the suggestions in the book photo and used four different fabrics. I thought one solid would be sufficient: it gives some definition and contrast to the prints and more than one can have an overly strong effect and dominate the ditsy prints so I didn't add another. The medium floral has a scattered spaced out print and a textured background and this contrasted with both the other geometric prints. The v.small geometric provides lightness without the starker/flatter effect of a solid and the small all-over geometric is a middle point between the two prints in terms of scale and the pattern is directional.
As usual, I pre-cut my pieces and foundation pieced my block. There are two shapes with two sizes for each, just multiply each shape for the number of pieces you are cutting in each colour:
Rotary Cutting
These are for foundation piecing so are cut larger than needed.
- Small square: 1 ½" square
- Larges quare: 1 ¾" square
- Small half-square triangles: cut 2 ¼" squares; subcut each square in half along the diagonal to yield 2 HSTs from each square
- Large half-square triangles: cut 2 ¾" squares; subcut each square in half along the diagonal to yield 2 HSTs from each square
The centre section of this block should nest together when you join the seams - I must've been day dreaming when I was piecing because mine didn't! For this block, some of the large half square triangles are added as oversized triangles and trimmed back using the quilt ruler's 45 degree line.
Top Tips for Foundation Piecing this Block
Viola is a straightforward block and quick to foundation piece. Jo from A Life in Lists is guest posting on this one- she'll get the post up later today then you can pop over and read her thoughts on it.- Pre cut all pieces
- Use a water based glue stick e.g. Sewline, to stick the first piece of fabric on each section
- Chain piece where possible
- Use an index card or a Dritz seam guide to fold the paper back when trimming excess
- Nest seams where possible
- Press central section seams open and corner section seams to one side
{For both blocks, I link to sponsor shops for fabric bought from them and elsewhere for other fabrics}
Don't forget to share your blocks or leave me a link in the comments so I can see where you are. I know the QAL is coming to an end but you may be working on a block from earlier on and I'd love to see.
- You can share your farmer's wife quilt blocks with the hashtags #fw1930sqal and for these blocks either #Tracyblock or #Violablock as well as #fw97Tracy, #fw98Viola
- 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.
I'll be back with the last block next week. A huge thank you to all my guest bloggers who did an amazing job sharing their skills, tips and knowledge, their successes and failures and their beautiful blocks. You can find all the posts here.
I like the colors you picked for your blocks, bright and cheery. I couldn't wait to finish my blocks so I put "widow" together too. Thanks so very much for this past year (almost) of block of the week fun. Here is a link to my post about the last few blocks. https://touchogrey.wordpress.com/2016/08/27/farmers-wife-blocks/
ReplyDeleteThanks for your explanation on choosing fabrics! I haven't started my Farmer's Wife yet as I just got the book for my birthday and am still collecting fabrics. I expect I'll come back and look at this post again as a guide once I start working :) And thanks for all your work on the quiltalong! I've really loved looking at your blocks over the past year, your boldness with colour is really inspiring!
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