More Farmer's Wife Blocks

I found my design wall this weekend while cleaning out my sewing room.  Once winter is here again and I cannot take photos outside I will be using it, until then I'm going to enjoy the outdoors.  The days are getting shorter and the evenings are cool.  Fall is my favorite season, although each season does have its benefits.

Here are blocks 70 Prairie Queen, 9 Box, 72 Railroad, and 41 Friendship Star.  I'm still enjoying them, although I think I'm going to put them on hold for awhile as I'm starting to need the other template sets, and I'm going to wait until I can get them on sale.  I may run through the Marti Michell emails and see if there are a few yet that I can do with the sets I have.

Here are the blocks I have finished so far.  I have 8 of 111 finished, only 103 to go!  I have to wonder why I am continually picking these extremely large projects. :)  I think I'm going to try and get my Vignette Mystery blocks put together and drawn out so I can work on them while I'm waiting at soccer practice and games.  It is fall again and time to get the handwork out.

I'm linking today with Judy and BOMs Away.  Happy Stitching and thanks for stopping by.  --Kristen

I'm back :)

This week has been a busy one, but I did get a few more Farmer's wife blocks finished and a few more cut.  Hopefully I will get some sewing time soon. 

This is block number 84 the spool block.  I am using reproduction fabrics.

This is block number 80 snowball.  After finishing these two and looking at the next ones I'm noticing I've been doing some of the easier ones first.  I am still loving the Marti Michell templates, and I do have the information for the weekly emails.  You need to go here and sign up for the newsletter on the right hand side.  If you would rather just sign up by email, you can send an email here and say "sign me up for the Farmer's wife emails."  The weekly emails are so helpful and give you instructions to cut the blocks with fewer pieces.  If you can wait, there will be a sale on the templates in one of the emails (I was given this information when I called to order my templates).  You need to sign up by August 31 so don't wait.  Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Stitching!  --Kristen

Farmer's Wife Blocks...finally

I've had the Farmer's wife book for well over a year now, I've printed the templates off and had them sitting with my book for months, and I've had the fabric for weeks, but I just couldn't find it in myself to start them, until today.  Why today?  Because the Marti Michell templates arrived and they seemed too good to be true.  I started at 9:15 p.m. cutting and I had two blocks finished by 9:45.  I'm not kidding.

This is block 16 Calico Puzzle.

Here is block number 21 Contrary Wife.

What took the most time?  Choosing which fabrics to use.  I would definitely recommend signing up for Marti's biweekly emails starting September 2.  The templates definitely make cutting out the pieces much easier.  I wasn't so sure about them, so I only purchased the B set of templates.  She is going to have a sale on them, but you have to get the emails to know what the dates will be.

I'm linking with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday and BOMs Away.  I will be back tomorrow with the link for the Marti Mitchell emails and hopefully some more finished blocks as I am only about 10 weeks behind. :)  Happy stitching!  --Kristen

FNSI

Last night I decided it might be nice to clean up a few loose ends. I started sewing all my left over scraps from making 1/2 square triangles and flying geese...

It was a little bigger job than I had thought it would be, but it feels great to have them all sewn at least into squares.  Now to decide which way to put them together.

Then I thought it would be nice to have all my Birdie Stitches BOM blocks put together so all I have to do is trace them and start stitching.  I have a couple of seams that are going to be taken out eventually, but last night I wasn't up for doing that yet.

The next three quilts are ones I found at Gold Rush yesterday.  They are all beautiful.  The pictures were taken with my cell phone, but still show all the work that went into them.  They were fun to see, and too expensive for me to acquire.  I hope they all find loving homes!

 

Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for hosting the FNSI.  I always enjoy virtually sewing with everyone.  Happy Stitching!  --Kristen

What a find!

Once a year a neighboring town has what they call Gold Rush.  Basically it is an antique show, but it isn't all antiques and it is miles of fun all outside.  We always try to spend a little time digging through other people's lost treasures.  This year I hit the jackpot.  I usually only bring $20 to spend so I force myself to get the best deals I can.  This year I got my money's worth!

This was my final purchase and I love it.  I collect milk glass and I have never seen anything like this before.  The best part...I got the seller to come down to 1/2 of his original price and fat quarters fit perfectly in it!

My first purchase was this milk glass bowl.  You can probably tell I collect the grape and leaf pattern.  It also has the grapes and leaves on the inside of the bowl!  I can't wait to start using it.

These next three finds made me rather sad.  They are beautiful and they were in a basket with a sign $2 each.  I cannot imagine how much time went into each one.  I told the woman selling them I was taking them home to save them from a worse fate.  She laughed at me, but I truly meant it.

They were all beautifully done and I left a lot more behind.  I have a towel rack where they will be displayed and cared for.  Tomorrow I will show you the beautiful quilts I found made out of feed sacks and all hand quilted. :)

I am linking today with My Romantic Home.  Do not forget that tonight is the FNSI.  I have a large pile of cut fabric that I will be working on.  Happy Stitching and thanks for stopping by!  --Kristen

WiP Wednesday

I finished it...and 2-1/2 hours before I needed to!  Yeah!  I started this embroidery on Sunday, though truth be told I traced it almost 5 years ago.  How sad is that?  I don't know what kept me from starting it, but once I started I couldn't put it down.  Yesterday afternoon I took a trip to my neighborhood quilt store and purchased the surrounding fabrics.  I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and it is the perfect day for it as the leaves are slowing dropping from our crabapple tree. 

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the backyard.  The sun is warm, but not too hot and there is a cool breeze to remind us that the warm days of summer are quickly coming to an end.  As I was finishing this pillow this morning I completely destroyed my sewing room...SO, I'm off to do a quick clean up and out to the backyard to do some fabric cutting for a new quilt.  I purchased some Christmas fabrics earlier today so I can start this.  Instead of using 16 fat eighths I'm using fat quarters.  Hopefully I'll have something to show soon.  I'm also hoping to get some Farmer's wife blocks cut.

I'm linking today with Lee.  Make sure you vote for the fabric she designed and entered in the Connecting Threads design contest.  She definitely has a winner in my opinion!  Thanks for stopping by and Happy Stitching!--Kristen

Where's Kristen?

I feel like that Where's Waldo game, except I'm looking for me! :)  I've had a great week of vacation, and I'm looking forward to the last few days off of work this week.  What have I been doing you ask?  Well, I have not been bored.

My Fat Quarter Shop Designer Mystery BOM arrived in my mailbox on Saturday, and it was all I could do to not work on it over the weekend.  I finished it late last night and I love it!  The colors in this quilt just sing happiness to me.  I guess I never realized how much I love yellow and red together.

My son and I spent part of last week participating in the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop.  It is a statewide hop that is divided into sections.  When you visit each shop in a section you are eligible for prizes for that section.  You receive a free pattern and a free 5" inch square of the Minnesota Shop Hop fabric from each shop you visit.  When you have finished visiting all the shops in the SE Minnesota section you receive....

Fourteen half yard cuts of these moda fabrics...how cool is that?  It is like getting paid to shop!  As I was getting ready to photograph these fabrics I realized just how much I like them all.  I may have never picked them out myself, but I do really like them.

Of course I didn't just go to get all the fun free stuff, I did do some shopping too.  I found this book and could not leave it behind.  As you can see it has 70 projects all made out of felt...which I LOVE!  I keep trying to decide which fruit/veggie/tool/ornament to start first. 

I have one more project that I've been working on over the past couple of days.  It has to be finished by tomorrow at noon so hopefully I can show you then.

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I'm linking today with Patchwork Times, BOMs Away, and Fabric Tuesday.  Happy Stitching!  --Kristen