Some 1930’s Blocks

It’s always amazing to me what I can accomplish when I don’t want to do something else!  I finished the last flying geese blocks of the “On Ringo Lake” mystery quilt last week and I felt like I couldn’t look at anything from that quilt for a while.

About the same time, I had to get something off the shelf where my Farmer’s Wife quilt was and knocked it off so I had to pull it out and re-fold it and I forgot how much I love that quilt!  I had pulled my 1930’s Farmer’s Wife blocks out of the bin while I was digging around and this got me to thinking – maybe I should finish these blocks.

I didn’t realize I had 17 blocks finished and there are 99 in the book.  So… I started working on them again and putting my flying geese blocks (from “On Ringo Lake” quilt) in between like leaders and enders.  Now I have 26 1930’s Farmer’s Wife blocks finished!

I forgot how quick and addictive they are.  My only problem is having enough 1930’s fabric on hand.  (I’ve ordered more.)

This book is a little different from the last one because there are many different directions for the blocks on the disk.  They give rotary cutting directions for some parts of some blocks – some blocks you can cut out completely with just a ruler and rotary cutter.  There are paper piecing patterns for almost every block.  I tried one block that way.

Most blocks still seem to work best by using the templates.  I use the templates and my ruler on top of them & my smallest rotary cutter (which is not shown here in the picture.)  I have to do a lot of moving around the cutting board.  It’s a little awkward but it works for me.

Some blocks are easy.

Some are a little harder.

So the thing about this quilt that I didn’t like was the finished layout.  The blocks are set on point but with a zig-zag type of sashing in between and then 4 of the blocks are cut in half and half of the block is at the top of the quilt and the other half is at the bottom of the quilt.

I just really hate when quilt blocks are cut in half but that’s just me.

I’ve been working on sketching an alternate layout for this quilt.  Unfortunately, I think there’s only so many ways to make a quilt with blocks on point so it will probably look a lot like the original Farmer’s Wife quilt.  I think I’ll use white sashing strips since these quilt blocks are very light in color.  I’m wondering how it would look if I use different colored center blocks between the sashing and then maybe I’ll use that 1930’s green for the setting triangles.

Depending on how many rows I use, I may only need 84 blocks or if I make it more of a square quilt, I could use 98 which would be almost all the blocks from the book.  I may do that if it’s too hard to choose which ones not to make.

 

I’m sure the layout of this quilt will evolve depending on how things work out.  I really love adding to the blocks on my design wall and then being able to look at them and move them around.