Fussy Cutting ruler for Farmer’s Wife quilt blocks

Since I'm skipping around in The Farmer's Wife sampler book and machine piecing the blocks with "easy math," I thought I'd add a bit of novelty to my blocks with selective fabric cutting—often called "fussy cutting."

The Farmer's Wife Block 20: Churn Dash with fussy cut center.
Fabrics from a Color Masters collection from Art Gallery Fabrics.

Selective Cutting/Fussy Cutting
Selective cutting makes the patchwork process more interesting for the maker and the challenge of seeking out motifs in the fabric... or finding a good block to feature a motif... is really fun. The resulting quilt blocks are also more unique. 

Last week I talked to the very helpful folks at Heavenly Stitches quilt shop about fussy cutting units for my 6-inch Farmer's Wife blocks. They showed me two possible rulers and we decided the Creative Grids Square it Up and Fussy Cut ruler would be best for the small units that comprise 6-inch blocks.

"Square it Up and Fussy Cut Ruler" from Creative Grids is a good tool for selective cutting.

In examining the ruler, it’s fairly intuitive but instructions are included in the package. The ruler's lines and markings are easy to see and ruler worked like a champ. Creative Grids rulers also have those built-in "grippy circles" to keep the fabric from slipping during the cutting process, which, as it turns out, are also helpful when centering the ruler on the fabric motif and marking the corner points. 

The Farmer's Wife Block 31: Evening Star with fussy cut center.
Fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics.

High Success Rate

Using this specialty ruler is much easier and the success rate is much higher than using a standard acrylic ruler for this technique. Contact YLQS (your local quilt shop) to get one of these great patchwork tools! The Evening Star block (above), with a fussy cut center, is next up for assembly.

18 years ago today

Today is our anniversary. 

The guy that inspired "The Chef's Dilemma" quilt and I.
It was 18 years ago today.

"Vous et nul Autre" [You and no Other] altar cloth.
Original design. Machine appliqué and machine quilted. 2000

This is the altar cloth that I created for our wedding—"Vous et nul Autre" [You and no Other]. This art quilt was on the altar in the beautiful St. Jude Church in Chattanooga for our wedding ceremony and hung there until the liturgical season changed.

Fr. Bob Hofstetter, the priest that married us and the pastor at the time, occasionally brought it back out and hung it in the church in February, around Valentine's Day.

This quilt earned a first place ribbon at a regional quilt show and appeared in a feature article in PieceWork magazine (Sept/Oct 2003). It's now on permanent display at Good Shepherd Church in Newport, TN.

"The Chef's Dilemma"
The background story about this quilt can be found here.

Larry and I had a lovely wedding reception at the Tennessee Aquarium with our families and friends—some of which traveled great distances. We had a full course dinner prepared by an excellent chef, four cakes (yes, FOUR), music and dancing—including a special rendition of Take me out to the Ballgame. It was quite the celebration.

18 years seems like a long time, 

but it doesn't feel like a long time.

Happy Anniversary, Larry.

You're my favorite!

100 Blocks 100 Days City Sampler sew-along approaching the end

Just a few more days until the end of my 100Days100Blocks2018 journey. The sew-along started on July 7 and the last day is October 14. I'm using batiks from Majestic Batiks for all my blocks. 

100Blocks100Days2018 sew-along. Majestic Batiks.

After seeing all the blocks together on the design wall, I decided the last remaining blocks should have lighter values. Here are the pieces for Blocks 97 - 100, laid out and ready for piecing.

Blocks 97 - 100 ready for piecing.

These last four blocks found their places among the others—beside the yellows, pinks, seafoam greens and the light aquas.

Oranges, magenta, yellows, pinks. Merging from warm colors to light.

City Sampler. Blocks from the book, "100 Modern Quilt Blocks."

I am researching settings—sashing/no sashing/on point/alternate blocks—and deciding whether to put them into one quilt or several smaller quilts.

100 Blocks: City Sampler.

The 100 Days of making blocks may soon be over, but there is more to be done.

Machine piecing the Farmer's Wife sampler blocks

In August, I posted about The Farmer's Wife  English paper piecing [EPP] stitch-along that was just beginning. On my birthday last week, I received this lovely Art Gallery Fabrics [AGF] bundle of fat quarters. Ah-ha! Project and supplies have met.

The Farmer's Wife pattern book and my new curated Art Gallery fat quarter bundle.

I have to calculate the Quilt Block Math for rotary cutting
Since the Farmer's Wife stitch-along began in August, I've decided to speed-piece the blocks by machine. The blocks are 6 inches (finished)—just like the City Sampler stitch-along that I'm working on. The Farmer's Wife book, however, does not provide cutting measurements. Instead, it includes a CD with a digital file for printing paper templates. Because I'm going to rotary cut the fabric for machine piecing, I'll have to calculate the cutting measurements myself.

The Autumn Tints block from The Farmer's Wife sampler quilt.

The blocks finish at 6 inches, so blocks divisible by 1, 2, 3 and 6 will be easy to calculate. Block 2, Autumn Tints (shown above), is an example.

Other handy formulas are:

Half-square triangles: add 7/8" to the finished size of the triangle leg.

Quarter-square triangles: add 1-1/4" to the finished size of the triangle's hypotenuse
(which happens to be the sides of the block).

Fabric Selection

The original bundle of Fat Quarters is shown here. It has a nice variety of almost-solids, small, medium and large prints that all coordinate... but there is not much contrast in value (lights/mediums/darks) between the fabrics.

Curated Fat Quarter bundle of Art Gallery fabrics.

I initially thought I would challenge myself to use only the fabrics in the bundle, but realized I didn't care for the lack of contrast in the piecing (a personal preference).

Here is Block 4: Basket Weave with my first attempt (left) and the second attempt with the introduction of two AGF blenders with darker values.

Two versions of Block 4: Basket Weave.

I have completed Block 2: Autumn Tints; Block 3: Basket (without the handle); Block 4: Basket Weave (two versions); Block 6: Big Dipper; and Block 10: Bowtie.

Six Farmer's Wife sampler blocks machine pieced.

The modern AGF prints and florals are a refreshing change of pace to the fabrics used in the book. And the taupe and peach blenders are a good addition to the fabric mix.