FW 1930s Grandma

- November 27, 2015

Block 39 Grandma

Hello Everyone! Well here we are at my day for posting in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Sew-along, The day after Thanksgiving for those of you living in the USA. I have seen so many beautiful blocks in all kinds of fabric combinations that you can view in the Facebook Group. This is the first of four post I will be doing over the next year. I am a Blogger of the week. Exciting and scary at the same time. I am very grateful to the Fat Quarter Shop, and Gnomeangel for giving me the opportunity to participate as an official blogger.

The letter for this block from a woman of later age really hit home for me. She reminded me of my grandma. Grandma came to live with use when I was 2. She had married young, raised 5 children, on a farm not 5 miles from her parents farm, her birthplace. When the last child graduated from high school and married she came to live with us to help care for me while my parents worked. She was a strong woman who had never left Texas since her birth and was then living in California. What a different world it must have been for her. I always admired my grandma for her bravery and her love of her family. When I was about 7, my parents divorced, Grandma bought a home in the town her children had gone to high school in and Momma and I lived with her. Her youngest daughter had children by then and she cared for all of us while our parents worked. Each letter within the book from women of the 1930s have the same concerns we do today. They lift you up and make you feel good even in bad times there is good.

The Grandma block (39) has lots of triangles and if your foundation paper piecing (FPP) and trying to fussy cut, use a fabric that is nondirectional. Meaning it doesn't matter if it is upside down or sideways!

As Blogger's we all try to find different ways to teach a lesson or just let you know that problems you maybe having with your blocks, others are too. You are not alone.

I used the Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP) technique included in the book. When I started the sew along I didn't have much experience with FPP. But I have practiced, practiced, practiced, and developed my In The Boon Docks: Tools in My Toolbox - FPP which has really made the sewing of the block much easier. The importance of using a small stitch width (I use 1.6) when sewing FPP is when you are removing the papers on the back. I recommend leaving the papers on until you get ready to join them together in a quilt or use them in project. It protects your blocks from stretching and becoming all wonky.

Fabrics are Tula Pink assorted fabrics and Cotton Supreme Solids, RJR Fabrics. Thread is Aurifil 2600 Dove which is great for piecing all colors.

The perfect tool for removing the papers are a pair of long slender tipped tweezers! I originally bought these to remove splinters. On the outside papers you can slip the side of the tweezers and remove the paper pretty easily.

But once you move into the next layer of papers it gets a little harder, that is when you carefully stick the tweezer point into the paper and move it to the edge and gently give it a tug. Some might just fall out but others take a little work!