L to R, from top: 1. Bits and pieces bee block, 2. Day 11 quilt top, 3. Blues, yellows, greys, 4. Emerson's baby quilt, 5. Baby mish mash, 6. Bee hexed in.
To give you some background to this post, I should point out that I've been plotting another big quilt project for a while, and have been more or less tossing up between two very traditional sampler quilts - Dear Jane and the Farmer's Wife quilt, done in more modern fabrics.
So, I was somewhat excited a couple of weeks ago when I happened to catch the Tweet-chatter between two fab bloggers, Angela and Amanda, about a possible low-pressure quilt along of the Farmers Wife quilt. Naturally, I dashed straight out (well, logged onto amazon) and got the book. And got super excited. We will gloss over the fact that (a) the book is not yet actually in my possession and (b) I have no idea if my skills are up to the blocks involved.
I was originally thinking of doing this scrappy, then toyed with the idea of finally chopping into some of my Libeerty fabrics, but in the end I decided that since I want all the emphasis to be on the contrast between the block designs rather than the fabrics, to go with a fairly limited colour palette of yellow, grey and light blue/aqua, with a stark white background and sashing. It's a really fresh palette (and I am not at all ripping off the superior colour selection skills of the countless fabulous sewists and quilters who have already demonstrated this), and I think it will offset these seriously traditional blocks nicely.
You can read Angela and Amanda's introductions to the quilt along here and here, and there's also a Flickr group (over 85 members already!) if you're interested in playing along too. I'm planning on working through the blocks chronologically, otherwise I know full well I'll just leave all the awkward blocks till last.
I've been a bit busy this week finishing off the first version of Negroni for Adam, but as soon as that's done (we are in buttonhole territory, very dull), I'll get cracking on a couple of blocks.
Oh, and the name? Well, Adam's not a farmer, and since it's him I'll be marrying in 6 (eek!) weeks, I figured I'd name it in his honour.
* Technically speaking, he's a marine design engineer, but was adamant that the above title was more snappy.
