Farmer’s Wife Block

Most old romances start with flirtation, love and marriage. Our first two blocks – Lover’s Knot and Wedding Bouquet. cover that. The next block represents what happened after the wedding – in many cases – a woman became a Farmer’s Wife. This block was designed by Nancy Cabot of the Chicago Tribune for the January 11, 1935 issue.

Just like young ladies learning a lot as a farmer’s wife, I had a lot to learn with this block! I have conquered kaleidoscope blocks, Y-seams, and curved piecing, but this combined all three challenges. I started with foundation piecing, which after a day of fighting with it – I will compare it to fighting with a stubborn mule on the farm – I gave up in favor of sleep. The next day I started fresh and with a new perspective – I will say I was up with the sun intent on a successful day. This time, I tried cutting templates and piecing them together, This was much better for one half of the block piecing, but was a bit of overkill for the other half. So I settled with half foundation piecing and half quick piecing. (An example of quick piecing is drawing a diagonal on the back of a square, sewing that square to another square with 1/4-inch seams on either side of the drawn line. This gives you two half-square triangle blocks.) This was the perfect balance in my mind to quickly make the block. Good thing, as I had three more to make.

I felt like I had just tackled milking and gardening all at once! Maybe I could be a Farmer’s Wife…. I don’t think my husband is up for switching professions!

Happy Quilting

Laureen

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