The Spanish Farmer Quilt Resumes

Earlier this year, as I was assessing what quilty goals I’d like to achieve over 2018, I realised that I wanted to pick up my Spanish Farmer quilt project again. I accepted the fact that I was well and truly over the 1930s Farmer’s Wife book, and decided to instead make up the rest of the block count with other assorted 6″ finished sampler blocks.

If you haven’t heard of this quilt before, that’s because I started it a long time ago and haven’t worked on it in ages, haha! I started the 1930s Farmer’s Wife quilt along in 2015, and made about 1/3 of the 100 blocks needed – you can see my progress here. My blocks are tone-on-tone in fabric choices, and all Kate Spain fabrics. Kate was the first fabric designer I fell in love with when I started quilting in 2011 – her Good Fortune line amazed me as my first taste of modern quilting fabrics, as they were Asian inspired, but in bright, fun colours! This was when we knew we were headed to Japan in 2012, so I was all about that modern Asian fabrics, and my Good Fortune quilt is still in use on our couch today.

So over the years, I had collected a lot of her fabrics (at least one piece from each of her fabric lines) knowing that one day I would make an all-Kate quilt. The Farmer’s Wife quilt was the first quilt I was attempting that could make use of small pieces of fabrics – all the charm squares would be handy!

But after moving back to Australia in 2016, this project has languished. I made a couple more random blocks last year, when I tried to pick it back up again – even with the decision to make whatever 6″ blocks to make it up. Oh how keen I sounded, haha! But alas, with no deadline or scheduled time set aside for it, it languished yet again. Although, I did find a photo of block 65 – Mother – that I can’t find anywhere on my blog, so let’s just say I managed to get one more made since then?!

Now this time, it’s different… I think, I hope… Because I have a scheduled plan. That’s how I make things happen. In August, I’m heading off for my annual quilty friends retreat, and I’m taking my tub of Kate, my 6″ Qube and AccuQuilt GO! cutter, and having a play. I may even throw in my Tula Pink City Sampler book for further inspiration too! I’ll set up my portable design wall, pin up the blocks I’ve already made, and start to fill in the gaps. I’ll start with the Patisserie block patterns, have a play with my next AccuQuilt BOM plans, and just have some fun.

The other part of taking some forward-moving action with this project was bringing up my Kate Spain stash to being current. I will still have at least one piece of every one of her fabric lines up until the final block is made, and I was a few ranges behind! Thankfully Fat Quarter Shop had some of her older lines still (and some on sale too, no less!). So I grabbed a piece of Merry Merry, Bungalow, and North Woods.

And Missouri Quilt Co. came through with Longitude, Latitude, Grand Canal, Early Bird, and Voyage – which clearly I really really like as I just had to order the layer cake.

I have a plan, I have it scheduled, I’m excited to see what I can get done!