Farmer's Wife 1930's, Sewing Along, and Slow Sewing

     I splurged a little yesterday and bought the recently published Farmer's Wife 1930's Sampler Quilt to add to my shelf. Then this morning one of the first things I saw on Instagram was a new sew along to go with the book! I will say that sew alongs keep me going. They provide such inspiration and connection with the sewing community, as well as the drive I need to keep sewing a little at a time. I also own the previous book Farmer's Wife 1920's Sampler Quilt and have had fun with it, especially reading the letters that these farmers' wives wrote about what it is like to be married to such men. What a different life they lived compared to ours with all our fast-paced modern-day demands. They had demands too, and I admire their creativity and use of what they had to work with.

  I have also been sewing through Lori Holt's (Bee In My Bonnet) Farm Girl Vintage, a series of easier blocks than Farmer's Wife, all based on the stitch-and-flip method. Some argue that there is more waste with this technique, but because I make extra blocks out of the unused but useable pieces, there hasn't been a whole lot relegated to the scrap jar. I am so happy with the blocks, and I am almost done sewing through the patterns. My color scheme is different than what is in the book: pastels and linen. Who says chicks can't be pink? Here are some of the recent blocks I have finished:

 Spring Star and Summer Star

 Simple Star

 Scrappy Maple Leaf

 Pie Cherries

 Pinwheels

My jumping off fabrics were Lulu Roses by Tanya Whelan, with linen as my background. I love that I can then use white tone on tones as part of my color scheme! I added other pieces from my scrap collection, some thrifted and some purchased new. The linen is a bit shifty to work with, but not too bad. It is actually pretty forgiving.

I recently came across some articles on the Slow Sewing movement. Here's a blog: The Slow Stitching Movement. There are actual books and lecture tours on this phenomenon, I believe. It is intriguing me. I love the idea of just sitting down a few minutes a day and stitching something, maybe by machine, maybe by hand, but with no deadline in mind. Ahhh, I like that! So sew along to get motivated, sit and stitch with no deadline--two ways to do it. Both good!