Farmer's Wife Friday: A Wonderful Gift

The writer of this week's letter is from Sauk County, Wisconsin. This farmer's wife, like many before her, does not want pity. "We have as many conveniences and pleasures as city women...with improved roads we easily reach the city 15 or 30 miles away to shop, attend lecture, concert or movie."

#23, Country Farm

It was easy to choose the colors for this block: I thought of the dusty brown of the road probably leading up to their farm, the green of the trees, maybe some corn growing in a field.

This is the first letter to give actual statistics from a county farm survey, which she uses to illustrate the point that "we are not so far behind the times:

Number of farm homes: 3460
Number of automobiles: 2,500
Number of oil, gas or electric stoves: 1,925
Number of pianos or Victrolas: 2,120
Number of power washers: 1,300
Number of farms having running water in the house: 1,260


#98 Waterwheel

It was interesting that only about a third of the farms surveyed had running water in the house. I tried to imagine living without running water, but I can't really imagine it. So, three watery shades of blue for this block, which looks a lot more complicated to construct than it actually is.

"We do admit that we have a lack of amusements but the lack may be a blessing. There are thousands of city hearts sick with misery caused by over-abundance of amusements."

#61 Northern Lights

Perhaps they are able to see the Northern Lights in Sauk County, Wisconsin. I actually googled the colors of northern lights, having never seen them myself. They look fantastic--and most of the pictures were kind of a turquoise and violet, almost iridescent in quality.

The writer is happy with the education provided by the country schools, along with the responsibility the children learn daily from growing up on a farm.

"Last but not least, we...have in our souls the peace and content that money cannot purchase. That surely is a wonderful gift."

I love how she ended her letter:
"'They lived happily ever after.' So end the fairy tales the children love. If fairies still ruled the world, would that they might grant that my daughter, the Princess, wed the Prince of the Soil, and live happily ever after in God's country, land of sunshine and flowers, health and happiness."

#80 Single Wedding Star

When I was about 5, I was the flower girl in a wedding. I distinctly remember the color of my dress; the color of this block is quite close and seemed like the proper choice.

Forty blocks. It hardly seems possible that the halfway point isn't that far away.

Don't forget to check out Carla's blocks. She consistently chooses bright and cheery prints, and never fails to have a great perspective on the letter of the week.

WIP Wednesday

The Go!Baby giveaway is here.

Finally. Some progress to show.

In the mood for hexagons?

Or in the mood for showing your college spirit (especially if you are an Aggie from Texas A&M)?

These blocks for the 4x5 modern quilt bee are finished and in the mail:

These blocks for the 3x6 sampler quilt mini bee are completed and in the mail.

My 36-patch blocks are all done and ready to be sewn together (and hard to photograph).

The latest Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks:

And talk about a work in progress (my beautiful daughter-in-law, whose due date was last Friday, the 23rd). Nothing I have to show compares to this!

Check out what everyone else is doing:

You Go! Baby!

A few weeks ago, Accuquilt generously sent me a Go!Baby cutter, with three dies of my choice.I chose the tumbler, hexagon and parallelogram, shapes that take a bit more time to cut than squares and rectangles.

As soon as it arrived, I enlisted the help of a cute little assistant. It was easy enough for her to use and she has had a lot of fun with it on several occasions.

The first project I tried was to cut hexagons, initially for an Aurifil thread giveaway. I stacked three layers of squares on the smallest hexagon.

 Some of you have already seen my hexagon flower.

Here is the completed project.

Then I tried a hexagon pencil case, designed by one of my favorite designers, Amy from During Quiet Time.

Amazingly, the large hexagon on each end of the pencil case was exactly the same size as the largest hexagon on the die cut.

Gotta love nice coincidences like that!

(Yes, I blatantly "borrwed" Amy's cute photo ideas with the pencil and eraser...)

Finally, I tried the tumbler die cut. This made good use of the fabric, with not too much waste. It successfully cut through three layers of fabric. It can cut through more layers, but I only used three. Once in a while, I had to clip a thread here or there but mostly the die cleanly cut through the fabric.

My brother's daughter is going to Texas A&M. I found some Aggie fabric at Fat Quarter Shop (they have others too!). So again, a chance to do two things with one project: test the tumbler die cut and make a quilt for Elizabeth's graduation. I used a pattern found in a magazine for inspiration (Best Quilts for Kids, quilt designed and made by Joanie Holton and Melanie Greseth), and made some changes. The designers had strips made from squares and I decided to change the dimensions of the quilt and use strips of tumbler blocks instead. I sewed four tumblers together and then cut off each end to make a rectangular strip.

It is a simple quilt made from rectangles of the Texas A&M fabric, along with strips of solids and tumblers in a random fashion--the same number of units in each row, just rearranged for variety. The added benefit was that there were few seams to match up!

My original thought was that if Elizabeth isn't crazy about having a Texas A&M quilt, then maybe her boyfriend would like it. But then I found this fabric for the back. She is a business major with a fashion merchandising emphasis. Perfect. But it pretty much guarantees that Fred will not want this quilt.

Accuquilt is also offering free patterns by just signing up for their newsletter. They have lots of information on their website so check it out. Just click on the link there on the sidebar to the right.

Would you like a Go!Baby of your own?? It's easy. Leave me a comment. Make SURE you can be contacted in case you are the winner. What should you comment on? How about this: Is there something most people don't know about you? Here's the time to spill it. Random Number Generator will choose the winner on October 4 at noon PDT, so there's plenty of time to comment.

So start commenting! Your comment doesn't have to contain anything personal (or you can just say "pick me" if you want to...) But here. I'll help you get started. I never eat blue M&Ms. There. See? Easy peasy.

Comments are now closed. Thanks, everyone, for your wonderful and insightful comments!

Monday Musings

I was gone over the weekend at our annual quilt camp in the mountains. I wasn't sure if I would be there all weekend, as our daughter-in-law's due date was Friday so Mark and I were prepared to go back home whenever the phone call came. But it hasn't come yet so we still anxiously awaiting our new grandbaby.

Of course there was much inspiration provided by my friends:

This t-shirt quilt, which gives me inspiration to get started on my Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt quilt.

 I have always wanted to try this pattern:

And this two-sided quilt. The front:

And the back (which would be a great quilt in its own right, don't you think?)

There were a lot more projects and sadly I took very few pictures.


I finished my 36-patch quilt-along blocks. I can hardly wait to sew them together.

Worked on a new project with Kate Spain's new line, Terrain. The colors and designs are just so beautiful.

We had a brief thunderstorm and a bit of rain.

And a beautiful sunset reflected on some faraway clouds.

Good food, lots of sewing, lots of laughter. Such a fun yearly weekend.

The Name Game will return next Monday.

Oh, before I forget...I did complete one more project for tomorrow. Tomorrow? What's tomorrow?

It's Accuquilt Go!Baby giveaway day!!! I hope you won't miss it.

Farmer's Wife Friday: Well-Balanced and Happily Busy

This week's writer was from Marion County, Indiana, and her writing style amused me. She starts out by saying, "There are two types of folk in this world who 'muss up my disposition,' to an absurd degree and I'm not sure which is the more obnoxious to me..., I think the people rank first who admit that life on the farm 'is all right for a few weeks in the summer, when you can hard all the fried chicken you want, for nothing; and it might be all right all the year 'round, if you had all the comforts of the city.'"

#21 Contrary Wife. The writer certainly has a contrary tone to her writing. As far as the block itself, this was one of the easiest blocks to construct to this point.

I can just imagine her wagging her finger when she says, "Let me tell you that the woman who can't keep her mind well-balanced and happily busy, on a farm, would probably be an entirely useless member of society, no matter where she lived."  Ha!

"We live in one of those much-talked-about homes where folks do not have all the modern conveniences but we do have good books, good music and a wealth of flowers and growing things about us. Above all else, we live together, working and playing and planning together..."

#35 Flower Basket. I do not like this block. I don't like the colors I chose. I do not like the handle. But I'm not changing it and decided instead to move on. In the scheme of 111 blocks, who will even notice? How is that for being contrary?

#8 Bouquet. By contrast, I really like this block. It was easier to put together than I anticipated and I would probably make this one again.

"Our children are learning to be self-supporting, self-respecting citizens, and they're doing it under the guidance of a father and mother whose lives are consecrated to that very task and through that task, to the service of humanity...our family live could never have been kept so intact, nor our happiness so secure, if we had lived any place other than on the farm."

#65 Peaceful Hours. While there was a lot of work to be done on this family's farm, I'm sure they enjoyed peaceful hours after the work was done. I was dreading this block, and not anticipating peaceful hours. Advice? Templates and pins are your friends!

I'm anxious to read what Carla has to say about this spunky farmer's wife.

The Name Game: Pins and Needles

I'm really pleased to have Dawn here today, from Pins and Needles.She is from the Chicago area. Hardly any of my friends know this about me, but when I was little, I actually lived in Chicago. For about six weeks. I think was under two years of age, and my parents moved all the way from California and then things didn't work out and six weeks later moved all the way back to California. I try to imagine doing that with a little one. Yikes.

The technical name of Dawn's blog is "Quilting by Dawn," which conjures up a couple of different images for me. Other than the obvious, which is her name, I imagine getting up early in the morning, quilting as the sun rises, coffee close by.

Okay, back to business.

How did you choose the name for your blog?

When I set up my blog, I just did it without much thought. I had just recently seen the movie Julie and Julia and I just started a complicated Mariner's Compass quilt for my husband. I thought I would track my progress, kind of like Julie did with cooking thru Julia Child's book. I never read blogs before (didn't know of the wonderful blog community of quilters) so I didn't know anything about naming one. When 'asked' to come up with a name, I stumbled with coming up with...anything...hmmm...not very creative...but quiltingbydawn was born. The sub title ...on pins and needles was added for 2 reasons: first it was my AIM name (does AIM still exist?) and secondly, the saying '...on pins and needles' conveys a feeling of anxiously awaiting the next creative adventure. Although I love to quilt, I also enjoy other sewing, knitting and crafts. I am rarely without a project in my hands or churning in my head (usually more than one.)

Were there other names you considered, and can you share any of them with us?

I seem to remember that the name I originally tried wasn't available but I don't remember what it was.

Now that you are recognized by your blog name, are you happy with it, or do you wish you could change it to something else?

Sometimes I wish that I would have one of those very creative, play on word blog names that you find out in blog land but I'm satisfied with it. I did try to add some unique qualities to 'quiltingbydawn' by spelling it in all lowercase letters, no spaces between the words and adding a subtitle. I'll save my creative juices for my quilts :D

Thanks Cindy, I am honored that you asked my to play along in the Name Game!

Thanks for joining us this week, Dawn. I hope everyone will head over to your blog, say hi and have a look around.