The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Prep

I’m so sorry that it’s been so quiet here this past week. We had a little one get sick, and my week was full of appointments, medications, treatments and so much driving. I feel like I buckled, unbuckled and re-buckled a thousand carseats over the last seven days! Thankfully, everyone is on the mend now, and I was able to steal a little bit of time this afternoon to do some quilt planning!

Starting next month, there’s not just one, but two blog sew-alongs that will be working their way through the 2014 edition of The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt. Quilt-along number 1 is taking place over at Very Kerry Berry. Sew-along #2 can be found at Gnome Angel. Each will feature guest bloggers, tips for getting your blocks to come out correctly and plenty of inspiration. I’m planning to try and join in both, as my time allows. I actually might pick and choose between the featured blocks and maybe not do them all, though. We’ll see how it goes. My goals will be be to complete enough blocks for a lap-size quilt, and then to actually assemble and finish the quilt in a timely manner.This book, by the way, is full of some of the most inspiring, uplifting and encouraging letters that I’ve ever read, all written during the 1930s to The Farmer’s Wife magazine. I keep finding myself wrapped up in flipping through and reading each one.

I’ve always been attracted to 1930s reproduction fabrics, but I’ve never actually used them for a project. Obviously, this quilt is the perfect place for them! I visited my local quilt shop last week, but I just couldn’t find the combination that I wanted, so I came home and browsed online instead. I love the various 30’s Playtime collections produced by Moda over the last several years, so I mixed and matched them as I found them available online. To be sure that I liked the combinations, I copied and pasted the fabric photos into an image on my laptop before I made my final decisions:I’m starting with just a 1/2 yard of each fabric, and I’m thinking that I might work in some solids, too. What do you think? Are any of you joining in? There’s still time!