Here are three more blocks for the Farmer’s Wife quilt. The center block needs to be ripped and redone. My scant 1/4 is a little too scant. Sometimes it doesn’t matter but in this case it would clip off the points of my little squares. By the end of the year I should really know my 1/4-inch seam quite well!
and what would I do without my helpers?
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Tagged cats, Farmer's Wife, quilt, quilting, Sewing
Feeling a bit guilty for having lost pattern 2, I sewed up blocks 2 and 3 right away. It’s very quick and easy now that all my star points are ready and waiting.
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Tagged block of the month, quilting, Sewing, stars, stash party
Let me start by saying that if you work with fabrics you should know Lizzy House. Because if you don’t, you are missing out BIG TIME. Lizzy has beautiful prints in beautiful colors – so much so that Susan collects hoardes bundles of it to display in her house. It’s that beautiful.
Lizzy came to the farm this weekend to give a quilting workshop (farm plus BFF’s plus quilting? I was SO in) and I was thrilled to be a part of it. I’ve not done a lot of quilting myself, and what I have done has been mostly frustrating because I never really bothered to figure out how to quilt, so when things went wrong I wasn’t really sure how to fix them. This class was perfect because I am not necessarily a beginner, but I needed to see people properly working a quilt to fill in the knowledge gap. And now that I know what I was doing wrong I realize how kind of simple the fixes were. Quilting is so very much easier than I was assuming it is, and so very much more fun!
Don’t you just love this Hello Kitty machine Virginia is sewing on?? Virginia owns “Gather Here” a beautiful yarn & fabric shop in Cambridge, MA. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop in and check it out. And tell her I said hi!!
The bonus? Aside from spending the weekend sewing at the farm, my dear friend Amanda came down from Boston.
I do not get to see Amanda nearly enough. That has to change.
I collaborated with Caroline and I am pretty sure a new quilting fiend has been born in her – she took right to it and loved it. Don’t be surprised if she’s designing quilts by this time next year!
Lizzy herself is just as beautiful and friendly and fun as her designs.
We were all working on making our own version of the quilt you see behind her – but not just “making” it. She shared a story of personal loss that spurred her to begin quilting, and how it saved her. How all of the emotion and love and sorrow and all of it went into the quilt until it became more than just “a quilt”. This is very familiar to me as a knitter, and to other knitters as well. Our craft is a kind of therapy and I have spent many hours knitting while mulling over whatever is happening in my life at that moment. From then on, that project always reminds me of that moment, like a snapshot. There are knitters I know who will call something their “angry scarf” or their “lucky socks” because that is what they remember most about knitting them. I oddly have a project that makes me think of Niagara Falls because I was listening to a “This American Life” segment about the Falls while I was knitting it.
Lizzy’s fabrics being bundled into a gorgeous stack.
This quilt project was about that, but in a more “intentional” way. Lizzy tasked us with deciding what we wanted our quilts to be about and to focus on that while working on it. I can tell you my intentions for it were all about my friendships at the farm (both old and new) and my hopes and feelings about finally getting my own farm underway. This will be an intentionally happy and lucky and grateful quilt. And Caroline and I worked on it together! I will remember that every time I see it and it will make me happy.
This is Lisa. Lisa lives locally (YAY!!!) and for all of you who are local, she and her husband own Revolutionary Soup. Right??!!! You can also check out their blog at Red Row Farm.
Caroline and I used a collection by Moda called “Papillon”.
I can’t wait to show off the project when it is all finished. We knocked out 12 of the 18 squares for the top. I’ll be machine quilting it once I’ve gotten the backing fabric and sandwiching material. Nothing fancy – I think the fabric does a knockout job on its own.
If you’re thinking about learning to quilt but are unsure – find a class. I can’t promise it will be as fun as this was, but it will take away much of the fear factor and get you going on the right track (if you live in the greater Boston area, Virginia’s shop is a great place to take classes, and you can use her machines there by the hour).
If Lizzy is going to be in your area giving a class or workshop – DO IT. I can’t speak highly enough of her. And for heaven’s sake if you find some of her fabric GET IT!!!
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Tagged Farm, Knitting, Sewing, Uncategorized
Since all of my stash party blocks will use the same star points around the outside, I am planning to get those pieces ready to go all at once. Yesterday I cut out what I needed for all the flying geese units and am hoping to sew those up today and cut the remaining white pieces. I lost my February pattern but they kindly gave me a replacement at the shop on Saturday along with the pattern for March. We had a little show and tell of our 2011 stash party quilts and it was wonderful to see a few of the other quilts. One lady made 3-D pinwheels for her quilt as the setting squares for her sashing and those were just darling.
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Tagged quilting, Sewing, stars, stash party
I’ve had several long sessions working on the templates for the Farmer’s Wife quilt. There are just over 100 and I’ve done all of them except the basket handle because I haven’t decided if I’m going to do hand or machine applique. The next class meets Tuesday, I can’t wait!
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Tagged Farmer's Wife, quilting, Sewing, templates
This is the post where I steal an entire bit from Susan’s blog and pass it on here. She and the crew at JMF are starting magazine. A beautiful, lovely, useful magazine centered around all things done by hand. Cooking, sewing, knitting, building…..you name it. I’m super excited about it (and having a hard time not boasting that I’ve known about it for quite awhile and have seen some of what’s going to go into it…..it’s too exciting to keep to myself!). Here it is in Susan’s words. There’s some lovely prizes to be had for those who can help get it off the ground.
Very Big News!
by Susan on March 2, 2012
So for months now I have been alluding to a big secret I’ve been keeping. I am thrilled that today I can finally share the news with all of you.
Juniper Moon Farm is starting a magazine called By Hand. By Hand will be a lifestyle magazine for people who make, with departments for cooking, crafting, DIY, gardening, and do-gooding, with a bit of travel and profiles of makers every month.
The idea is to celebrate creating things with our hands, and to explore the motivation to make things in a world where there are cheaper and immediate alternatives. It will be both practical (patterns, DIY projects, etc) and thoughtful, with a lovely and gentle aesthetic.
We have lots of amazing contributors and editors on board already, and the first issue is well underway. But before we go any further, we need your help!
We are holding a Kickstarter campaign to raise the rest of the money we need to make the magazine everything we want it to be. And as an added inducement, we have commissioned so amazing rewards! Our art director Michelle Lukezic has designed posters and t-shirts that are going to be incredibly popular with people who make things with their hands. Here’s a sample:
There are posters and t-shirts for each of the sections in the magazine!
If you like what you see and want to support us, great! If you can help us get the word out about the Kickstarter and the magazine we will be forever in your debt!
What’s going on right now:
What are you up to this week????
