The Quilty Barn Along Tutorial!...

YaY!

Thanks so much for all of your lovely comments yesterday

 about the back of my farmers wife quilt.

I'm sew happy that you all want to play quilty barns with me:)

I'm super excited about it!

First off...

I have created the "Quilty Barn Along"

flickr group so 

CLICK HERE

to sign up and join in on the fun!

So let's get started with the tutorial!

Are you ready for a good ol'fashioned barn raisin?

First of all...

you will need a 6 1/2" UNFINISHED block to go on the side of the barn.

This is a good way to use up some 6" orphan blocks from another project...

or maybe if you only want to do a few farmers wife blocks

 instead of the whole quilt this would be a perfect time!

I stitched up a traditional weathervane block

 that I have already done a tutorial on.

CLICK HERE 

to go to the tutorial if you want to make an

 easy weathervane block for your barn:)

After you've made your block...

come back here for the barn buildin'!!!

So here is what you need for the barn...

Cut 2 - 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" 

Cut 2 - 2 1/2" squares

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" 

Cut 4 - 1 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 2 1/2" 

And for the roof...

Cut 1 - 4 1/2" x 8 1/2"

Cut 1 - 2 1/2" square

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 2 1/2"

For the door and window...

Cut 1 - 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" 

Cut 1 - 2 1/2"  square

For the background...

Cut 3 - 2 1/2" squares

Cut 2 - 2 1/2" x 4 1/2"

Cut 4 - 1 1/2" squares

Let's start by sewing the easy corner triangles...

take note that as usual, after trimming...

I always press towards the triangles:)

1. Sew a 2 1/2" square on the diagonal to the left side 

of a 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" barn rectangle.

2. Sew a 2 1/2" roof fabric square onto the left side of the same rectangle.

3. Sew a 2 1/2" background square onto the top right side of the main roof piece.

4. Sew a 1 1/2" white square onto one side of each gray rectangle.

 Trim and press towards the triangle before you sew a square onto the other side.

Now set these pieces aside for later.

Sew a 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" red to the top and bottom of your quilt block.

Press towards the red.

Now sew a 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" red to each side.

Again...press towards the red.

Set aside for later.

Sew a 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" red to each side of the barn door.

Sew a 2 1/2" red square to each side of the window.

Sew a 1 1/2" x 2 1/2" red to the bottom of each cupola roof.

Press all seams towards the red.

Now add a 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" red to the top of the door and press towards the red.

Sew the window section to the bottom of the easy corner triangle roof section....

press towards the window.

Now sew the door section to the left side of the quilt block section. 

Press towards the door section.

Sew the roof section to the window section.

Press towards the roof.

Now sew the roof to the barn!!!

Press towards the roof.

Sew the background pieces to the cupola sections like this.

Press towards the background.

Now add the cupola section to the top of the barn and 

smile ...:)

because you have just built a barn!

It should measure 14 1/2" x 14 1/2" at this point:)

I will post a new quilty barn every other Wedneday...

the Wednesday in between the row along tutorials.

I'm thinking that I will make 12 barns total for the quilt.

(the first quilt anyway...haha)

All of the barns will be the same...

I will just be doing different

 6" blocks to go on the sides.

Of course...

I will let you know any and all information about them.

To make sure that you do not miss anything...

sign up to get my posts directly to your email by subscribing.

(you can do so by entering your email addy on the right side of my blog where it says feed burner)

Also... 

I will have information and links to each tutorial

 on the home page of the

 Quilty Barn Along Flickr group

 so be sure to click over and join.

If you don't have a flickr account...

it's really easy to set one up.

You can just use your yahoo, google or Facebook account to sign in.

Or...

you might want to 

CLICK HERE

to see my friend Jodi's tutorial about joining and using Flickr.

I hope you have fun with your first quilty barn and I am waiting on pins and needles to see them on the group photo page!!!

Have a barn raisin' kind of day my friends!

xx

Lori

PS...I havn't created a button yet because I'm a dork and I don't know how.

(i know how to milk a cow and herd the sheep but i don't know how to make a quilty barn button)

Does anyone want to make one for us?

If you do...email me:)

The Back of my Farmers Wife Quilt!!!...

Yesterday

 I showed you the front of my farmers wife quilt...

But what I didn't show you...

was the back!!!

I always planned on using the vintage seed catalogue print on the back...

(it's from Lakehouse fabrics and sadly is no longer in print)

Anyhoo...

 When I went to prepare the backing...

I found that I didn't have quite enough.

(insert sad face here)

My grandma always said that

 "necessity is the mother of invention"

And so...

 I decided to "invent" a larger backing piece

 by designing and piecing a row of 

blocks into the backing fabric 

to make it larger! 

Because the quilt celebrates farm life...

I thought it only fitting to build a barn

 around a few of my leftover farmers wife blocks!

YaY!

I have always loved barns.

Although I am not a farmers wife...

I was raised on a farm and so

I am a farmers daughter:) 

I had so much fun building them and 

I decided that these quilty barns would make an adorable quilt.

And so...

I got the idea that you might have fun building barns with me!

Yep!!!

My big announcement is ...

The Quilty Barn Along!!!

If you want to "quilty barn along" with me...

let me know and I will put the tutorial

 for my barn block up... 

along with a 

Quilty Barn flickr group and a button.

Sew...how about it???

Are you in?

xx

Lori

My Farmers Wife Quilt is Finished!!!...

My Farmers Wife is finally complete:)

YaY!

I know I've posted about my progress about a bajillion times

 because I've been working on it for quite a while.

Every time I had a break in between deadlines...

I would sew up a block or two.

I have done several tutorials on many of the blocks...

and showed you my easy corner triangle method on some of them.

And as I progressed I posted a few pictures ....

And a few more....

until I had all of them complete and laid out on the floor to arrange in order.

(by all of them...I mean 52...for the size of quilt that I made)

I showed you my sashing, borders, binding and backing fabric.

And even showed you when I almost had the top complete.

Now it feels good to be able to show it all finished!

As usual...

I hung it on my front room wall for a quick photo shoot 

along side some of my vintagey collections.

It will eventually find it's home on my kitchen wall...

a fitting place for a farmers wife quilt I think!

I've loved making this quilt because as I have told you before...

I love making sampler quilts and I have made many over the years.

Even though I'm happy it's complete...

I must admit that I'll miss working on it:)

Tomorrow I have a

 BIG announcement...

so stay tuned...

and don't forget to 

have a quilty kind of day:)

xx

Lori

The Bee in my Bonnet Row Along...Row 12 - Sewing Baskets!!!

Good Morning cute people!

Thanks sew much for tuning in for row12 of the

Bee in my Bonnet Row Along!

Today we are making sewing baskets to go with our cute row of spools:)

Here's what you need for ONE basket -

Cut 1 - 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" for basket

Cut 1 - 1 1/2" x 4 1/2" for basket bottom

Cut 1 - 1" x 3 1/2" for handle top

Cut 2 - 1" x 3" for handle sides

Background-

Cut 4 - 1 1/2" squares

Cut 2 - 2 1/2" squares

Cut 1 - 2 1/2" x 3" for inside handles

Cut 2 - 2" x 3 1/2" for outside handles

Layout your pieces like above photo...

Begin by sewing the half square triangles onto the sides 

of the basket and basket bottom....

trim...

Press towards the triangles.

Sew the remaining 1 1/2" squares onto the sides of the basket bottoms like this.

Now sew the bottom basket section to the top basket section.

You can see that my seams don't line up and it bothered me enough to "unsew" it and fix it later...:)

Now sew the handle sides to the white

2 1/2" x 3" background piece.

Then add the top.

Next add the background sides...

and sew the handle section to the basket section for your first basket block!!!!

YaY!!!!

It should measure 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" at this point:)

Now cut 6 more basket/handle combos from your stash ...

and stitch them up for a total of 7 cute sewing baskets.

Cut 6 - 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" background strips for sashing and sew them between the baskets as you join them together in a row.

As always...

add larger sashings on each end and trim your row to measure 50 1/2" wide.

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 50 1/2" strips and sew to the top and the bottom of your basket row.

Now you have a sweet row of sewing baskets for your quilt!

We are getting near the end of the rows 

and when I post the next row tutorial

I will be able to give more information on the fabric amount needed

 to complete the quilt so that you will have plenty of fabric purchasing and planning time:)

Don't forget to post your rows on the 

row along flickr group...

we all love to see them!!!

Have a quilty kind of day...

xx

Lori

The Bee in my Bonnet Thimble Ruler...and another free pattern!!!

Introducing...

"Jump Rope"

another free pattern from me to you!

(Happy Valentine's Day to all of you 

sweetie pie readers out there...

I heart every one of you:)

(you can download it HERE)

I made this quilt using my 

Thimble Rulers 

along with 5" and 10" squares:)

I know that this shape is now called a 

"tumbler"...

 but my grandma and her sisters used to 

call it a thimble...

 and that's what I went with!

And yes...

More gratuitous photos of my kids.

Sorry for the shadows on the quilt:)

Obviously I took these at the same time 

as my Honeycomb quilt that I showed you yesterday:)

Still a windy day and trying to get a full shot of the quilt was a challenge:)

As you can see...there are two sizes of Thimble shapes in the quilt...

Sewn together top to bottom in strips.

When you sew two small thimbles together...

they are the same size as one large thimble...

making the possibilities endless!

I called the quilt "Jump Rope" because the strips reminded me of the jump ropes I used to play with at recess with all the girls.

You know the kind...

they were made of kind of colorful elongated hard plastic beads?

This quilt is super fast to cut and sew up.

Again...

I used my fabric lines all mixed together 

and 

I used yardage and 4 fat quarters 

for the back of this one.

I don't know if you can see the binding...

but it's scrappy too!

I used up leftover 2 1/2" strips by sewing them together for the binding.

Jump Rope makes a great lap quilt and 

I think it would make a fun and easy baby quilt too!

Let's talk a little bit about different ways that you can use the rulers.

I'll show you a few variations using the small ruler.

I rotary cut this thimble from a 5" square.

Easy peasy.

You can cut several...flip them around and sew them into rows.

OR...

You can sew 4 squares together...

In this case 2 1/2" size...

Line up the lines on the ruler 

 with your seam lines ...

And cut a scrappy Thimble!!!

Then you can alternate with scrappy and plain if you want:)

You can also cut  two different 5" squares in half and sew the strips together...

Line up with the center line on the ruler...

And cut.

And sew into rows this way.

These are just a few possibilities...

you could also flip the ruler and cut so that the different fabric strips 

are on each side of the thimble instead of on the top and bottom.

And for the ends of each row...

Place 2 - 2 1/2" x 5" strips with wrong sides together...

line up with the center line of the ruler and cut at the same time so that you have one in reverse...

Like this.

Or simply cut a thimble shape in half.

Sew them onto the ends of the rows so that they

 end up straight and not slanted!

YaY!!!

This makes it soooo much easier to bind:)

You can do the same thing using the large rulers and four 5" squares sewn together like I did in my Jump Rope quilt.

See what I mean?

lots of possibilities with these rulers.

A good way to play with pre-cuts and also to use up those 

extra strips and squares that we all seem to accumulate:)

And now that my rulers are here I will be using them a lot ...

I have several tutorials planned using all of them...

so stay tuned my friends...and have a quilty week end!!!

xx

Lori