Well hello again cute
Farm Girl Friday people!
Today is week 17 and I have a new
Farm Girl Mash Up block for you:)
YaY!
But first things first.
Let's grab our books…
And turn to page 56 where you will find
the instructions for our first block;
Pinwheels!
Okay.
Can I just tell you
how much I love pinwheels?
Such a classic block
that never goes out of style.
It plays perfectly with
all of my other farm girl blocks:)
I love making scrappy pinwheels!
And I have several methods that
I use to make traditional blocks...
and I try to show you
different options in my book.
One way that I make pinwheels is:
I like to get into my
scrappy stash basket
and cut 4 matching squares…
then match them up with
4 background squares of the same size.
I simply stitch a line from corner to corner...
Then just trim off the excess like this.
When I press open I have a half square triangle
for one segment of my pinwheel.
I just sew the four sections together
to form my pinwheel block…
Easy Peasy!
That's how I made the pinwheels
surrounding my
Farm Girl tractor
for my Quilty Barn quilt label…
in John Deere green:)
But because I learned to
drive on a red Farmall tractor
that's the kind I made for the book!
After all…
no farm girl book would be complete
without a Farm Girl Tractor!
I decided to surround
the tractor with pinwheels
because pinwheel blocks
show movement and
I wanted to give the feel
of the tractor
in the middle of the field…
turning and turning
the soil for planting:)
I named the quilt
PLOW DAY
and you can find
the pattern on page 96
of my Farm Girl Vintage book:)
Because there are so many
pinwheels in this quilt
I show you another method
on making them
in the book using only
one print square and
one background square:)
I hope you try both methods
and see which one
suits you and/or your
scrappy stash better!
Next up we have another
traditional block called
"Postage Stamp"
on page 57 of the book.
This is the 12" block…
but next is the mash up part!
If you make the 6" Postage Stamp block…
And put it in the center
of my 12" Simple Star block…
(instead of cutting a 6 1/2" square of pink fabric)
You'll end up with my
farm girl mash up block called
Farm Girl Star!!!
I've shown this block on my
quite a while back because
I have been making a lot of these
Farm Girl Stars
for a super big quilt!
Although the block is super easy to sew together…
making several Postage Stamp blocks
may seem a little overwhelming to you
because there are 36 squares in each block…
and you might be wondering how you
will cut all those scrappy squares!
My answer is
LEFTOVERS!
I use all of my leftovers to make my
"starter and stopper" projects…
or what I have always called bonus quilting.
I LOVE to get something beautiful out of
what might have otherwise gone to waste…
that's the farm girl way!
It's just not as hard to prepare for my
starters and stoppers as you may think.
Whenever I have leftovers
from trimming off my easy corner triangles…
I just quickly cut them into a square
like this!
Sometimes I have quite a few leftovers…
depending on the project.
I cut up to 4 layers at a time…
and I cut a 1 1/2" square or a 2 1/2" square from them…
depending on how big the leftover pieces are.
They are super easy and fast to trim up
especially when using a rotating cutting mat.
My favorite is this round pink one
by my friend Sue Daley:)
When my squares are cut…
I put them into my
scrappy leftover strips
basket that is the same size
as the squares I just cut.
I have talked about my method of
saving and using my leftovers many times.
Here is a link to one of my posts…
if you haven't seen it before.
Once you have a bunch of squares cut
for your postage stamp blocks
you can just go ahead and sew it up
all at once like you normally would…
and you can sew them a little at a time
using the starter and stopper method:)
This is how I do that.
I have a container holding my squares
next to my machine at all times.
(usually it's vintage because that's how I roll)
In this case its a
pink oval melmac bowl.
When I'm sewing blocks
for a quilt
(such as several Welcome blocks from my book pictured above)…
When I come to a
starting or a stopping point
between chain piecing…
Instead of pulling out my
last section that I just pieced ...
I pick up two squares
and sew them together…
and leave them there!
Until I sew the next segment
of chain piecing for my
Welcome block.
to see my tutorial on my
Bonus Quilting method
I put all of my 2 squares
sewn together segments
back into the bowl.
Periodically I pull them out
and press my seams open
and sew them into rows
until I have a
Postage Stamp block complete.
Then I simply use it for
the center of a 12" Simple Star.
After a while it's amazing how many
blocks you can complete
just by sewing these cute
Farm Girl Star blocks using my
starter and stoppers method!
Another bonus by
sewing this way is that
you NEVER waste any of
your precious thread or
you don't waste time
trimming those long thread tails.
It also helps to keep
your machine from
"jamming"
when you are starting
to sew each segment of a block.
No more or that!
Each piece goes under and through
the feed dogs smoothly
and that's important!
(if you want your piecing to be accurate:)
Any of my 6" farm girl blocks will
fit in the center of
my 12" Simple Star block.
(I feel another sampler coming on!)
My pinwheel block would
be adorable inside one!
And remember back last year
to when I showed you how
to sew these 3" blocks from my
and put them inside my
6" Simple Star block?
Don't you just love it?
It's all sew much fun!
These cute little
"X" blocks are also in my
from 3 years ago when
my fabric collection
Polka Dot Stitches came out:)
I also put my
6" Great Granny Square block
inside of my
12" Simple Star block as well:)
Both the 6" block and
the 12" block patterns are inside my
Great Granny Squared book:)
We did a scrappy square exchange in my June
Farm Girl Vintage retreats and one
of the things that we made with the
1 1/2" squares were Farm Girl Stars.
I love doing mash up blocks for my retreats
as well as Farm Girl Vintage companion blocks
like Penny Pig and Apple Picking.
In other Farm Girl Vintage news…
I'm doing 2 more retreats in October!!!
Again hosted by
Thimbles and Threads
but at their new lodge in
beautiful Draper, Utah.
Sign ups opened for
the second one yesterday…
to reserve your spot!
While there…
I will be revealing my
long awaited and requested
Milk Cow farm girl block
as well as a few other surprises!
to go to our Farm Girl Fridays sew along schedule
to keep on track and to visit our guest bloggers:)
Have a Farm Girl Friday
quilty kind of day!
xx
Lori
