Farmer’s wife: W.C.T.U.

I never heard of an organisation called W.C.T.U. before. But of course, I looked them up as soon as I started sewing this block. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. I wanted to find a link between this block’s design and them. Maybe their logo looks like this. Nope. Maybe their former logo looked like this. Nope. Maybe … what else? On their website, I read about their history and today’s issues, but I am still at a loss.

W.C.T.U.

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

Apart from that, I think this block design very unusual, and very pretty. Piecing it was very much fun. In the internet, I found some examples using only two colours, the four big squares in the same colour as the background. I think this very appealing too, but then I decided to go with Laurie and have three different colours.

Farmer’s wife: Weathervane

I just realised that I forgot to post a picture of two blocks that come before the Waterwheel.

Weathervane

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

This was the first block I came to realise that I could take a “shortcut” with some block patterns.

In the original pattern, the bannerets in the four corners (light turquoise) consist of four triangles, all similar in size. As you can see, I “combined” two of them, having thus  two small triangles and one triangle which is double the size of the others.

Now I am looking out for such shortcuts because I think less seams will do my small 4,5″ blocks good.

Farmer’s wife: Waterwheel

I am behind on posting what I have sewn so far. So, without many words …

Waterwheel

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

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Farmer’s wife: Wedding Ring

Wedding Ring

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

This is a picture puzzle. There are three wedding rings hidden in this picture. Can you find them all? Never mind, I will explain.

The most obvious one is the dark turquoise full (but somewhat angular) circle.

The second is the smaller circle in white with four sparkling “diamonds” attached.

The third ring is not depicted fully. You can see only four parts of it, white/turquoise with light green gems.

This is one of the Farmer’s Wife blocks which looks 100 percent better on point, I think.

Farmer’s wife: Whirlwind

A whirlwind is a weather occurrence which we do not see very often around here. I only know whirlwinds from television. Maybe that is why I sewed such a cute one in light blue. Pretty harmless—as I would wish every whirlwind to be.

Whirlwind

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

See that white “w” on white ground (bottom left corner)? W—like whirlwind—not fussy cut.

Farmer’s wife: Wild Geese

I have seen wild geese today. Some on grassland, some flying above me, very low. They are big animals, indeed. And beautiful. Mostly greyish-brown, with black neck, head, beak and eyes, and white cheeks.

Wild Geese

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

Back at school, I had a friend whose family kept all sorts of animals, most of them running freely on their property. Her parents were both vets, and some or most of these creatures were left there by their owners as if her parents had an animal shelter. I remember that they kept geese and pigeons for the purpose of eating them. And I remember that I had a high respect of the geese especially. They were always so alert and hissed at any person coming near.

But what I find most fascinating about geese, is their flying in formation. And that is, of course, what I see in this block.

Farmer’s wife: Wild Goose Chase

Today, I sewed a particularly pretty little block.

Wild Goose Chase

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

I often asked myself what is so very appealing to the traditional goose block. I confess I do not know.

Anyone who is familiar with the Farmer’s Wife quilt, will notice that I did not stick to the original pattern—again. This time, however, coincidentally. I did not look into the pattern when joining the last two seams, and I was very sure that the two rows of geese should fly in opposite directions. I only found out later that this is not what Laurie Hird intended. But still, I did not redo the block because I like it just the same, or even better, for it scotches the impression of looking at two very tall fir trees.

Farmer’s wife: Wild Rose & Square

Wild Rose & Square

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

Call me over-particular—but I cannot see a rose in this block. There is no rose with less than five petals. And what a nice one this is:

© by Luise/pixelio

Then the key to this block must lie elsewhere. Do I see four blossoms pointing to the four corners, a green stem in the middle?

As a matter of fact, I love wild roses. We have several in our garden, one is called Violet Blue. It is a big shrub with long thornless branches, that are, in June, covered with many purple blossoms, bleeding to white in the middle, and a yellow centre. Considering this, I would like to think of this block as depicting one end of Violet Blue’s long branches.

Farmer’s wife: Windblown Square and Whirlpool

I am a big fan of half square triangles. I do not particularly like to sew them, but you can do such a variety of geometric patterns with them. Windblown Square is a good example.

Stepping five steps back, you do not realise at first sight that this design consists of a certain arrangement of half square triangles. You think that you are looking at some rhombuses. Only on closer examination, or when you sew the block, you realise this simple “trick”.

Windblown Square

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

When having a closer look at another block, I realised that it is exactly the same pattern as Windblown Square. The only difference is the use of colours.

Whirlpool

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

I did not like to do two so very similar blocks. So I changed them both. I used five instead of three colours for Windblown Square, and I rotated the corner triangles of the Whirlpo0l block.

Again, I have “sewn” a very smal quilt out of four Windblown Square blocks in order to illustrate what happens:

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

There you can see that by joining the blocks, a second pattern emerges: the blue pinwheel in the middle.

Farmer’s wife: Windmill

For the Farmer’s Wife quilt, I am spending considerable time on fabric choice. I cannot copy Laurie Hird’s sample since I am using totally different fabrics—design and colour. But in addition, I must say that sometimes I am not completely convinced of Laurie’s fabric choice when it comes to colour and value.

The windmill block is a bad example for stating my point because I like Laurie’s version very much.

When beginning a new block, I frequently start by looking at what other people did. I am gathering photo references on my Pinterest board “farmer’s wife”—both of Farmer’s wife blocks I think especially pretty, and especially, well, unhappy in fabric choice/colour combination. Thus, I have for each block a clue as to how to make it perfectly right, or what to avoid at any rate.

Windmill

© 2012 by Heike Scharmann

The windmill block was very easy to sew, but nevertheless very satisfactory.