More Tiny Triangles

I've made another 4 FW blocks, Snowball, Spool, Country Farm and Attic Windows. These are all straightforward 9-patch blocks.

However when looking through the blocks I haven't yet done I realised that there were still several that need half-square triangles that finish to an inch. I had a go at making some by drawing around a paper template:

but they are difficult to draw and I don't stitch a very straight line with my dodgy wrists so although they were O.K. I have reverted to my usual method of drawing a grid. I started with two ten inch squares and drew a 2" grid and then drew in the diagonals so that they went in opposite directions on adjacent squares because you can then stitch a continuous line.

 It is a bit of an intellectual challenge to work out where to go in order to keep going - a topology problem slightly more difficult than the ones I use to do with my class of infants!




Then you cut on all the lines.
you do have to trim them to one and a half inches but you can do them as they are needed, not necessarily all at once!

And if you choose a fabric with a diagonal stripe you end up with two sets, stripes going in different directions!

Streak of Lightening

Farmer's Wife Blocks

is well named as a block! I think it took me seven minutes to make! Here are the next six blocks, clockwise from top left: Churn Dash (my version), Waterwheel (I have changed the colour values in this one), Contrary Wife, Basket Weave, another very quick block, Windows,  and Streak of Lightening.

I am getting on with these as they are preventing me from doing something else... but I am not wanting to keep making blocks that are almost the same when there are other blocks I really like that I would prefer to have in my quilt. I don't think I will be making another tree block, and can't see the point of Spider Legs when I have already made Wood Lily.

Here are some of the Journal Covers that the Westwatch Girls made on quilt retreat for the Bookwrap Gems:

Enid Carroll of Pennyloaf Patchers

Mandy Parks

The West Watch Quilters' Retreat

Farmers Wife again!

Six more FW blocks

Clockwise from the top left: Wild Rose and Square, Evening Star, Butterfly at the Crossroads, Wrench,, Wedding Ring, Single Wedding Star. Three of these are based on a five x five grid and I used Gilly's templates for them, thank you Gilly!

Farmer's Wife Blocks

Here are my six blocks for a six day retreat! Northern Lights, which I know as Buckeye Beauty, top left. Weathervane, top right, Puss in the Corner which is easy to make with Marti Michell set A Templates at centre left; Aunt Sukey's Choice at centre right, which is similar to Cups and Saucers but not actually a F W block! Bottom left is Railroad, Wild Goose Chase is bottom right.

I downloaded a foundation pattern for the flying geese from www.quilterscache.com (Marcia Hohn's  site ) where there are lots of free patterns and made them in pairs. Aunt Sukey's Choice uses the same size geese, and Cups and Saucers needs them too. It's a fairly easy way to make small ones accurately.

Peaceful Hours

Peaceful Hours now the children have gone home... but also the name of this beautiful block that Ruth made for me, all hand stitched English paper piecing style, with incredibly tiny stitches.

I have been looking at ways to simplify some of the blocks as the more seams you have the more difficult they are to get the right size.
Marti Michell has some good tips for this and I have cut this Weathervane using some of her suggestions.I photographed the layout as it's a bit tricky. The only thing I would change is to remember to cut the outer light triangles the other way so that there are no bias edges on the outside of the block. However these were cut from small scraps of fabric and that was how they fitted on this time!

The pictures!

The dark Pineapple quilt:


I am now wondering if the centres might be a bit bright and need toning down a bit perhaps by tea staining?
I am very pleased with how this has come together and it will have a wide medium blue border, and then go off to be quilted.

Many of the fabrics in here, which are left-overs from other projects are now going into my Farmer's Wife blocks.

The Wonky Log Cabin blocks:

 The Baby quilt with double pinwheel blocks made from Jellyroll strips for my nephew Carl and Agnieska.

The Farmer's Wife blocks:

Noon and Light and Fruit Basket

   Broken Dishes and Peace and Plenty 
   which both use 16 half-square   triangles.





which both were made from the templates Gilly sent


Chequerboard and  Storm Signal which were made from the Fiddler's Jig templates on Marcia Hohn's site here as the square-on-point is a strange size
and below is Whirlwind which is straightforward to make.