Rainbow Farmer's Wife Quilt {Finished}

In 2016, my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project was to make blocks every month for a Farmer's Wife quilt. I made about a dozen blocks in each color over the course of the year and finished up the top at the end of last year. I used foundation piecing rather than hand piecing and templates.

The top was twin sized and I had it pantograph quilted with a loopy design once I finally decided on and purchased fabric for the backing. I picked it up in Michigan over Christmas with my also-quilted Gathering quilt (hopefully also being finished soon!). 

I trimmed the quilt and saved the big chunks of backing for the binding. I decided to hand stitch the binding to the back since we have spent a lot of time watching movies lately! 

Here it is all finished and ready for snuggling!

The backing and binding are a Michael Miller Chevron print. I wanted some sort of print for the backing, but also wanted something that wouldn't detract from the quite busy top. I thought this print was a good choice and I was very happy to have enough of it to use for the binding as well.

I think that the simple quilting motif is a great choice for this quilt.

Quilt stats:

Name: Rainbow Farmer's Wife

Pattern: Farmer's Wife Sampler

Size: 70 x 90 inches

Quilting: "Raindrops" pantograph

Started: January 2016

Finished: January 2018

Sharing at Finish it up Friday and Scrap Happy Saturday!

Ps. We now have a Honey, Bunny, and Doll FACEBOOK GROUP! Join in to see an early preview of our upcoming quilt along!

Rainbow Farmer's Wife {End of RSC 2016}

It is fitting that today is the last day of 2016, and I just finished the quilt top of my 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, my scrappy 1920s Farmer's Wife. Before Christmas, I showed my rows partially completed, and I trimmed up the quilt top last night!

Here's my finished top before I trimmed it:

At 67 x 88, it just barely fits into my kitchen. This is a pretty decent twin size, so I don't plan on adding a border. I don't know if I want to quilt this one myself or not, but my goal was to get the top done before the end of the year, and I accomplished that! Hooray!

Last night I got the top trimmed and here it is "in the wild" aka on the dead grass of our apartment complex, which just has to do for the time being.

I was pleasantly surprised by two things in putting this quilt top together. First, I was impressed with how well the colors end up blending from one another in the quilt. I think it helps that I didn't just do lines of each color - I tried to "interlock" each color with the next to make the color changes less abrupt.

Second, I am wildly happy with how nicely all of the different prints, and styles of prints, are playing together. there are a few larger scale prints that stick out more than the rest, but overall, I don't find it to be too busy nor too gaudy. I think the simple grey setting is a huge factor in keeping it from being too much.

Sharing at the last Scrap Happy Saturday of the year! Hopefully by next Saturday I'll have my plan for the RSC 2017!

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Farmer's Wife {In Rows}

The first thing I've been working on from my December WIP-busting list is my Farmer's Wife quilt that I have been working on as a part of the 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I decided to lay out my blocks in a rainbow ombre fashion (that's the best way that I can describe it!) starting with brown at the upper left corner, then progressing through orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, red, and finally pink in the lower right corner.

Originally, I had planned to use my neutral sashing and triangle fabric with cornerstones, but ultimately decided against it because it was going to be a lot more work. Sure, it would definitely look neat-o, but I think the blocks will "float" more without cornerstones.

I decided to use 1 inch finished sashing for this quilt since the blocks are 6 inches finished. I worked on two rows at a time to get the blocks, sashing strips, and setting triangles into rows.

My goal today is to get the top all together and figure out if it needs borders or not. Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Scrappy Farmer's Wife {111 blocks}

I have finally finished all of my scrappy Farmer's Wife blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2016!

Here are my last two individual blocks:

#105 - Wild Goose Chase, #111 - Wrench

I went ahead and laid out all of my blocks. I am very excited to start working on laying them all out in the on-point setting (as in the original pattern, since I did make all 111 blocks!)

I breathed a big sigh of relief upon finishing that last block -- it is so good to have all of them done! I am going to say that I will not be doing another round of 6 inch blocks next year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge right now!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Oh Scrap!

Almost There {Farmer's Wife}

I've been finishing up the last handful of Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for my Farmer's Wife quilt. Since last I posted, I finished six more blocks in various colors. I only have two more blocks to go until I am completely finished! Hooray!

Here are my blocks:

#104 - Wild Geese, #106 - Wild Rose and Square, #107 - Windblown Square

#108 - Windmill, #109 - Windows, #110 - Wood Lily

These blocks will blend well with the blocks that I already made. I have to make the Wild Goose Chase and Wrench (Churn Dash) blocks and then I will be done! Next week I will have a full shot of all of my blocks and start working on setting and sashing my blocks. Hooray!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Oh Scrap!

Lemon Zest {RSC October 2016}

I have now completed all of my yellow Farmer's Wife blocks! Hooray!

#92- Streak of Lightning, #96 - Tulip, #97 - Waste Not

#98 - Waterwheel, #99 - WCTU

My favorite out of this bunch is definitely the Waste Not block. I even used fabric left over from my most recent Moda Bake Shop Quilt as the background.

Here's my whole collection of yellow blocks:

I was worried about a few of these being rather light, but I think in the grand scheme of the whole quilt they will work nicely.

I have also managed to complete 4 of the last 12 blocks that need to be made. I decided to make 1-2 more blocks in each color. Thus far I have made a blue, a brown, a purple, and an orange.

#100 - Weathervane, #101 - Wedding Ring

#102 - Whirlpool, #103 - Whirlwind

I have been going through some of my "newer" scraps to make these blocks so that they won't repeat too much from the previous group of colored blocks. I had a little mishap with my brown Wedding Ring block and had to sub in some solid brown after I ran out of my brown print. It's a little more subtle in person than it is in the picture, so I can live with it.

I only have eight more blocks to go until I am done with all 111 blocks! Wow! Doing this as part of the rainbow scrap challenge has been a great choice to manage the blocks and not get overwhelmed in making them, so if you are looking for a project for next year's RSC, I would recommend the Farmer's Wife blocks!

Don't forget to click on over to this post to enter to win a fat quarter bundle of Kitchen Love!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Daffodil {RSC 2016}

This month is our last month for making blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge -- the next two months are for top-making and quilting. October is yellow with orange accents. These two colors happen to be the colors I think that I have the least of.

It seems like there are a lot of basket-style blocks this month! I apologize if some of the blocks are hard to see -- not a ton of contrast in some of these blocks.

#89 - Steps to the Altar, #90 - Storm Signal, #91 - Strawberry Basket

#93 - Swallow, #94 - Tall Pine Tree, #95 - Temperance Tree

I had to scrap my #92 - Streak of Lightning block because I messed up and didn't have enough of the fabrics I wanted to use to complete it! Whoops.

I think my favorite out of these six is the Temperance Tree block -- I used a fun yellow and teal bird print that I just had a little bit of. It ended up being perfect for this block!

Five more yellow blocks to go, then I have 12 to make in a variety of colors to get to the final tally of 111 blocks.

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Fabric Tuesday!

Peppermint {RSC 2016}

It might be the start of a new month in the RSC but I just finished up all of my September blocks!

#85 - Square Dance, #86 - Squash Blossom

#87 - Star Gardener, #88 - Star of Hope

For Star Gardener, I picked out the small pieces of my scraps and used a whole bunch of them up. Some of the colors repeat once, but many are only used once!

Here are all of my September red blocks:

These are some of my favorites so far! Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Building Blocks Tuesday!

Roses {RSC September}

After another busy weekend last week, I'm finally back with more red Farmer's Wife blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I was able to complete 6 blocks over the last two weeks! Hooray!

#79 Silver Lane, #80 Single Wedding Star, #81 Snowball

#82 Spider Legs, #83 Spider Web, #84 Spool

While I didn't end up using a ton of yellow as accents in these blocks, I did try to use lots of different shades of red in the different blocks. I was also able to find quite a few red and white prints to use as well.

Four more blocks to make this month, and then I'll have 88 out of 111 blocks completed! Since I skipped August, I will need to make a few extra blocks at the end to catch up (I originally planned to do 11 blocks a month for 10 months) and I think I will try to make blocks that "blend" between my already made blocks for when I put it all together.

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Lipstick {RSC September}

After unintentionally skipping last month in the RSC, I am back and ready to make some red blocks!

Here's my red stash:

I don't seem to have lots of red scraps, per se -- it seems like I have a lot of larger cuts leftover from borders and backings.

I was able to get one Farmer's Wife block done today:

#78 - Shooting Star

Now on to work on the rest of the blocks!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Oh Scrap!

Pink Lemonade {RSC July 2016}

It's the end of July! This month has gone by SO fast and I just finished up my last July Farmer's Wife block this morning! I've been busy with two different tutorial posts and if you haven't seen them yet you can check out Candy Shop here and Sparkle Tree Skirt here!

On to those pink Farmer's Wife blocks!

#75 - Rosebud, #76 - Sawtooth

#77 - Seasons

In continuing with the previous blocks I made this month, these were also pretty simple to put together. The Rosebud block only has four paper piecing sections! Despite pink being my favorite color, my pick scraps were not terribly extensive and I am ready to move onto another color for August. 

Here are all of my July blocks together:

I think that there are a good variety of pinks represented here and these will blend well with my orange blocks from a few months back and my red blocks when we finally get to our red month. I only have 34 blocks to go! Hooray!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Flamingo {RSC July 2016}

In between two different secret sewing projects, I was able to sneak in four more Farmer's Wife blocks this week.

#71 - Puss in the Corner, #72 - Railroad

#73 - Rainbow Flowers, #74 - Ribbons

This set was another very simple set of blocks and were quick to put together. While it's a little more coral than pink, the Railroad block is definitely my favorite out of this set. The darker fabric used in that block is one of my absolute favorites. 

Only three more to go this month, but I have bee commitments to get done this weekend, so I will be doing those later today and tomorrow. 

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Watermelon {RSC July 2016}

I am very excited that July is the month for pink (with green accents) in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Pink has always been my favorite color, and pink and green is one of my favorite color combinations. I have made a LOT of pink and green quilts.

I pulled out my pink scraps and was slightly disappointed to see how little pink that I had!

I had a little snafu with my paper piecing templates. I printed all of them out as I normally do but unfortunately along the lines I had changed my scaling settings to "fit" from "actual" I made almost two whole blocks before I realized they were a half an inch too small all the way around.

Here's my original Pine Tree with my correctly sized Pine Tree:

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed to have to remake the most complicated block this month. Here are all four of my blocks so far:

#67 - Pine tree, #68 - Postage Stamp

#69 - Practical Orchard, #70 - Prairie Queen

I thought about making my postage stamp completely scrappy, but I went with the trip around the world coloring instead and I am very pleased with how it turned out. Other than the Pine Tree, the rest of this month's blocks are relatively simple and don't have the tiny piecing that some of the previous month's blocks had.

Don't forget that the new Bear Tracks pattern is on sale for only $5 for a short time!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Oh Scrap!

Sea Glass {RSC 2016}

This week I finished up my last five Farmer's Wife blocks for this month. I definitely didn't use quite as much lime green as I originally planned, but I am very happy with these blocks!

#62 - Old Windmill, #63 - Ozark Maple Leaf

#64 - Peace and Plenty, #65 - Peaceful Hours, #66 - Periwinkle

My favorite one out of this set is Peaceful Hours -- that one has almost 40 pieces! The rest were much simpler. :)

Here are all of my aqua blocks for this month:

These will blend very well between my blue blocks and my green blocks! Since I'm done with all of my Farmer's Wife blocks for this month, I'll be working on my two blue birthstone blocks next week. After that -- who knows! I need to get started on my next Moda Bake Shop quilt for July too!

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Oh Scrap!

Ocean {RSC 2016}

It's the beginning of the month which means there is a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge! Our assigned color this month is aqua with lime green accents. In January, the color was true blue and so I separated my blue scraps into true blue and aqua/teal piles so I was already ready to go for this month.

My piles of light, medium, and dark aquas and teals aren't too frightening.

I don't have a ton of lights, so I will probably have a few blocks with darker backgrounds. My mediums pile is double the size of the dark pile and triple the size of the light pile, so that's where I'll be focusing my attentions.

I was able to get the first six blocks together relatively quickly over the last two days, so potentially I'll be able to squeeze in some of my blue birthstone blocks this month too!

Here are the six that I have done so far:

#56 - Maple Leaf, #57 - Morning, # 58 - Mother's Dream

#59 - Night and Day, #60 - Noon and Light, #61 - Northern Lights

As you can see, other than the Night and Day block, these were pretty simple to put together. I think my favorite out of this bunch is the Noon and Light block -- what about you? Can you spot the little koalas on the maple leaf block?

Have a wonderful weekend! Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday! 

Don't forget that Tuesday is the next installment of the Summer on the Coast QAL! And pop on over to Flickr if you might be interested in doing a 2.5 inch strip swap at some point this summer!

Halfway There {RSC 2016}

Since we are now officially halfway through the block making portion of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I thought that it was time to show off all 55 of my farmer's wife blocks that I have made thus far.

I am SOOO HAPPY with this so far! I am excited that I get to make 56 more! I'm also happy with the great variety of colors, tones, and different fabrics. There isn't a single block that seems out of place now that all of the blocks are together.

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Forest {RSC May 2016}

Last week when I pulled my greens, I was surprised that I didn't have more scraps. This week, when going through some of my projects, I found the reason why:

A pile of greens BIGGER than what I had in my scrap box was hanging out in a bag of fabrics that I had brought home from my mom's house at least a year ago. Some of these are really large hunks and chunks from backings. Needless to say any dent that I make in my greens will be outweighed by this discovery. Oops.

I decided to go ahead and finish up all of my green blocks for this month and then start thinking if there are any other projects that I can do with primarily greens (time to dig through the abandoned project box!) over the rest of the month.

# 50 - Honey's Choice, #51 - Hovering Birds, #52 - Hovering Hawks

#53 - Jackknife, #54 - Kitchen Woodbox, #55 - Linoleum

Since Hovering Birds and Hovering Hawks are such similar blocks, I did my best to color them very differently to keep them from looking too similar. I think my favorite out of this set is Honey's Choice. 

Despite the wide range of greens, I think these will blend well together once I finally get all of these blocks completed and finish the quilt. 

I've already started thinking about how I am going to put this quilt together and what colors to potentially use for sashings. My initial thought is to use white or off white solid since I haven't used any solid other than a little bit of grey solid last month. My other thought was to put a thin border around each block in a solid color -- for these green blocks I would use various solid greens -- and then put all of the blocks together. 

How do you think I should put everything together? Any FW veterans out there with tips to share?

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Fabric Tuesday!

Mint {RSC May 2016}

It's a new month and that means a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month our color is green with brown accents.

I pulled out my green pile of scraps and this is what I came up with:

To me this doesn't seem like quite as much green as I thought that I had but hopefully I can get through a lot of these scraps.

Here are my first five blocks for this month:

#45 - Grape Basket, #46 - Hill and Valley, #47 - Homemaker

#48 - Homeward Bound, #49 - Honeycomb

The Homemaker block had lots and lots of y-seams, despite being paper pieced. It did come together well, but it took a double dose of patience this week. The rest of the blocks were relatively simple -- I did eliminate some unnecessary piecing in both the Homeward bound and in the Honeycomb block.

What are your scrappy projects this weekend? Or are you starting something new?

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday, Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, and Fabric Tuesday!

Creamsicles {RSC April 2016}

It's time for me to show of my last three blocks for April's orange blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

This week, I have two with small piecing and one with larger piecing:

#42 -- Fruit Basket, #43 -- Garden Path, #44 -- Gentleman's Fancy

These came together slightly faster than the previous weeks' blocks because there were fewer "parts" of the block to sew together to finish them. I think may favorite out of these three is the Garden Path block.

Now I am done with all eleven blocks for this month:

While my orange scrap pile was not as large as some of the piles I started with in previous months, I still seemed to make a respectable dent in reducing the pile. I am just realizing now that I made three different basket blocks this month!

I think I am going to have to start on another scrappy type project this month since I have met my Rainbow Scrap Challenge goal for the month! Decisions, decisions...

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Peachy Keen {RSC April 2016}

It's another Scrappy Saturday parade of Farmer's Wife blocks and April is our month for orange.

This week I had one tedious block and three easy ones.

#38 -- Four Winds, #39 -- Friendship

#40 -- Friendship Block, #41 -- Friendship Star

The names for these ones aren't super creative, as you can see! I decided to use grey for the background of the Four Winds block because I needed a lot of it and didn't want to use up one of my peach fabrics too early in the month.

I also really like the Friendship block because I was able to use the pansy fabric! Some of these blocks aren't suited to be used with larger scale prints so I really like it when there are a few blocks where I can fit one in.

Now I have eight blocks done for this month:

I'm very happy with my sprinkling of black accents thus far and have planned out my last three blocks for this month and will hopefully finish those tomorrow.

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Sew Cute Tuesday!