Making some Farmers Wife Sampler Blocks

 Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks with  Friday Night Block Party

Weekly Block Party  by Elaine at  Summercrater.com ...   Joining in with Elaine to make blocks and Farmer's Wife Sampler Blocks

Elaine, over at Summercrafter.com ,  has started a linky group ,  called Friday Night Block Party.  We can link up a block that we made during the week, and see what other blocks everyone is making. 

Recently, Elaine began to make some blocks from The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Book, by Laurie Aaron Hird.  I looked up my book, and decided to join in with her.  I want to try to make as many of the blocks as I can, to continue to  improve my block-piecing skills. (But am not worrying about being late or missing some blocks.)  I also joined in the Yahoo Farmer's Wife Sampler group,  where I can access foundation paper pieced patterns for the same blocks and get some advice on the hard blocks. I really love to paper piece, but will challenge myself to do many of  the template pieces, too, for the experience.

The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book   sold at Amazon.com

I am going to use my stash for making these blocks.  (Good girl!!)   I have a lot of Denyse Schmidt fabric , in  DS Quilts line, in turquoise, gray, blues, oranges, and teals that I love. 
It will be a scrappy look, I think.

Before I began to sew, I wanted to make sure that several 'size issues' were cleared up in my mind:

• Use scant quarter inch seam allowance?  

 Yes.   I verified that my sewing machine and quarter inch foot worked well, when I sewed  a SCANT quarter inch. After  pressing the seams, it turns out to be a quarter inch seam allowance.   Now, this should allow my templates to be put  together with the right seam allowance size. 

• Print options... print like usual, with "no scaling to page size" ?

Yes.  And,  I  verified that when I also checked the "borderless" print option, the pattern prints out much larger... to make a 7 1/2 inch block , rather than the 6 inch block 

Checking the "borderless" print option made the block bigger than the intended size of 6 inch

• Is the template method or the paper pieced method more accurate (for me)?

 Paper pieced method is more accurate, for me,  for meeting points and keeping the 1/4 inch  seam allowances needed  for putting the blocks together later.

Left block was constructed with templates... I did not have a 1/4 inch seam allowance at the intersection on the right (marked as "here *" )
Right block has all of the seam allowances and the square has all of it 4 points, using the paper pieced construction

After studying all of these issues, I am ready to make the blocks finally!

Elaine started out making the block # 58   Mother's Dream  (page 185 in the book)
My block:    I chose to paper piece it this time.  

#58  Mother's Dream  FWSQ block    by Susie's Sunroom

It did turn out to be a slightly small, measuring in at just under 6 " all around.   I am not going to trim these blocks until I am ready to use them in a project.  I really liked making the one!  You might see some project using this block some time down the road....

The second week, Elaine made Block # 1  Attic Windows.    (page 128)

 #1  Attic Windows   FWSQ block  by Susie's Sunroom

I made it initially using the template method, and had to use the seam ripper a few times to keep  the square "square at the corners".  It is trickier than it looks!  I made this one by paper piecing and was happy with it.

Last week, Elaine  made the #2  Autumn Tints block.  (page 129 )

#2  Autumn Tints  FWSQ block    by Susie's Sunroom

I used the paper pieced method again, as I was under a time constraint.

Since I have 3 blocks made, I'll show you how they look together!

My blocks so far                 Susie's Sunroom

I have some bigger projects to complete soon. But it was very  enjoyable to make these blocks.  I know that I will have fun making a lot of these, and then pick out favorite block patterns to use in other projects.

I'm off to my sewing room!

Linking up to:   Friday Night Block Party @ Summercrafter
          and         Paper Piecing Party @ Quiet Play