Donna's Quilt

 Every quilt is so different. Each one has a life of it's own, and different colour feel, mood. I find I  quilt a lot when I want to make a LOT of panels. And I do mean a lot. I take pics of every quilt and keep in a folder on the computer.( I've made so many quilts, runners, etc by now that I can't even count them. ) It's pretty cool to look back at a quilt with the name beneath the photo, and remember making it and why, where, what. And most importantly the person you made it for.
    This time it was a large runner. For Donna. Something unique. It would take extra planning.I dragged out my "Farmer's Wife" quilt block book. Written by Laurie Aaron Hird.  A book I had lost. Now it was found.  A virtual gold mine of quilt blocks. If you like to quilt I suggest getting this book. Amazing.

 This time I thought it would be good to try a sampler quilt, where I could use all sorts of blocks. The "Farmer's Wife" book, (complete with letters from 1920's farm wives and 11 blocks by Laurie Aaron Hird)  is an inspiring book. The Disc that came with the book included ALL the pattern pieces to print out and make templates. Fabulous. So exciting.
                                            
 At first I thought I would do up ALL 111 blocks THEN choose the ones I would use from the mass of blocks. I never like a small project, I like a BIG one, doing everything in sight. After the first 20, I figured that  was pretty good for now. The rest would have to wait.

While working on Donna's quilt, I read the "Farmer's Wife" . Great book. Great stories. Well laid out  with one pattern per page. Colour coded. An easy read as well, and very clear.
 

 The squares come out to  6 inches or so. Nice size.I used side plates to keep the pieces organized for Donna's runner which had to be about 76 inches in length.

                 

 If I was to do the entire runner with just these small squares, I would be making them till Christmas. I needed some larger 12 inch Star squares to balance it all out.

 So I  made 12 inch blocked Stars for the centre panel. As you can see, Bo helped with the tape measure.....

  In the end ,Donna's runner was a good 76 inches  with a mix of blocks with cool names:  Friendship star, Friendship block, Evening Star, Economy,Country Farm,Century of Progress,Calico Puzzle, Buzzard's Roost,Butterfly at the Crossroads,Broken Sugar Bowl,Box, Big Dipper, Bat Wing, Basket Weave, Ohio Star, Autumn Tints, Attic Windows, and a few more star patterns that's I've forgotten...(so much fabric, so many quilt squares to go....)