The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (20's) Block 62 Old Windmill and an English Paper Piecing tutorial

The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (20's)  Block 62 Old Windmill

I thought I would go back to basics on this post.  If you glance down the side bar you will see that I have been blogging since 2012.  Over that time I have made my Nearly Insane quilt and my Dear Jane quilt, plus a few others along the way.  Just this week I got an email asking questions about my Nearly Insane quilt and how I make my quilts.  

This is the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (20's)  Block 62 Old Windmill.  It is English paper pieced.  Yes, I know it is just squares and triangles and some of you could do it quicker on the sewing machine, but I choose to make most of my quilts by hand and sometimes it is the only time I have to sew.  You will see that I have included a little label of its name today.  I have taken each of the Farmer's Wife blocks and drafted them into Electric Quilt 8.  This enables me to make the block at any size and in the case of this quilt, I am making the blocks at 4" instead of the original 6" - not translated well in a picture on the internet (NB: Sorry, no I can't sell / give you a copy) .  Once drafted I print out an outline drawing of my block an usually it has its name at the top of the page which I snip out to label my prepped bags of sewing.  I have scanned all my Fig Tree fabrics into Electric quilt and it is a really worthwhile task as I can test out colour combinations before I take my rotary cutter to my fabric.  I usually use my iPad to take a screenshot as a record and use it as a reference to cut out the fabric.  Once cut out, it is put  in a bag, in a bag with thread, needle and a thimble, ready for a MOMENT.

This block was done whilst watching television last evening during down time.  These days, down time is down time from quilting other people's quilts as part of my longarm quilting business, where I get to quilt some mega quilts for my customers - do take a look.  

The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (20's)  Block 62 Old Windmill

Here is a photo of the back - I do this once in a while, just for new Followers.  You will see that I have coded each piece with a letter, so I know what fabric it goes with which piece.  I tack through the paper  for basting and leave all the papers in.  Why? Until the edge pieces have something to be sewn to, they will need the paper in them. Also, I usually put no time limit on my quilts, so I will probably handle the blocks quite a lot  between now and quilting the quilt, so it keeps them square for the years between - yes, years.  When your quilts are English Paper pieced and they are pretty much dead square, it is hard to appreciate why anyone would piece otherwise - but they do.  Once I blog a block, I number it and add it to a pile.  It's slowly getting bigger.