Friday, April 19, 2013

Sharing

Time to share what I have been up to as of late.  I did not get my weekly Farmer's Wife quilt block put together last week.  I did finish it yesterday, but I did not get this weeks cut out yet.  This is block #7 called Birds in the Air.  I really like the way this block turned out.
I flipped through the book to try and find an exert to share with you again this week.  I have three grown daughters so when I read this mothers letter to the Farmer' Wife magazine that started out "I hope to see my daughters, three in number, marry farmers, and I'm not particular about any special sort of farming." I decided to finish reading this particular letter. This mother talks in her letter about a cultured woman.  "I want my daughter to be a cultured woman; a cultured person must be a thinker and I am sure there is no other place or work which affords the chance for one to think than the farm does."  and "Women of today have greater opportunities and greater knowledge but our problems are more difficult.  We must be thinkers in order to build for the health, happiness and success of tomorrow."  Although these letters were written the the 1920's I believe there are a lot of correctness to them today.

The reason I am behind on my Farmer's Wife blocks is this very large Amy Butler Cosmo bag that I put together last week.  My best friend and I are getting ready for a trip the end of May and we decided to each make one of these bags. She has the pattern so we spent many hours together cutting them out.   I was going to go with brighter colors but I already had some of this Anna Griffin Fiona fabric in my stash for a couple of years.  I did have to buy some of the coordinating fabric from eBay.   We are going to Hawaii for close to two weeks.  I'll tell you more about how that came about later.  But since we are going for so long we will be checking a larger piece of luggage and we are going to use these bags as our carry on.
 

The bottom has some extra padding a sits really well and the inside has some great large pockets.  There are also pocket on the outside down the each side but I do not think the picture shows that.  The directions do say this is an easy bag to make but as we have found others on their blogs have said it was not so easy and we agree.  It took many hours to cut it out and many more to sew it together.  But I am really happy with it and would probably make another, but with some brighter fun colors.
And the last thing I have to share is the April block of the month.  I finished putting it together last weekend just in time for the May block to show up in the mail.
The weather is keeping me inside and there has been absolutely no gardening or yard work done yet this spring.  The rain turned to snow flurries today and our ponds are the highest they have been in years.  Hopefully soon I can share something besides my sewing projects. 

It has been a sad week for our country as all of you know.  The bombs in Boston, the fire in Texas and this crazy weather has certainly been hard to watch.  I wish you all the blessings possible from our home in the woods!
Brenda

Linking up with my favorite Friday night parties:


8 comments:

Donna said...

Your quilting work is just beautiful. I also really love your tote bag! The fabrics you've used are so pretty:)

deb said...

What a gorgeous quilt! Love your bag too. Wishing you a safe and wonderful trip!!
*hugs*deb

Bee Lady said...

WOW! I am impressed with all of your sewing and I love seeing your projects so don't stop. That bag is awesome. I can't even get to my sewing machine right now. OH well...it's freezing cold in that room anyway! What is up with this weather. I'm getting ready to post more flood pictures of our town. It's CRAZY! I'm going crazy. Stir crazy!

Cindy Bee

Melody said...

So many fabulous things in this post. I adore your bag.

Scrapatches said...

Brenda ... that blue and white FW block is sew pretty it makes me want to run and find all my blue white fabrics and make a blue/white only FW quilt. Hmmm ... I am so far behind in the blocks that I just might do that.

The bag is sew sweet. Thanks for sharing ... :) Pat

mrs. c said...

As usual..... lovely work! I adore your bag! Have been glued to the t.v. with all the news from Boston and Texas. I say my prayers everyday for our country and all my friends. I have started working in the yard and have planted all my planters, then the frost hit and I hope they will make it. I should have waited till after my birthday, April 27th, that is when I usually plant. I didn't mean to amble on, just hope all is well with you and yours!

lauraluvsloons said...

Hi Brenda: I thought you might like to see the pillow I made from the pattern you sent me as part of your give away for the Stitch me up blog. I'll be posting it on the "Bird" blog hop with a shout out to you on my blog posting on May 7th. I'll email you a sneak peak. Thanks again for the gifts.

Jenny said...

Brenda! Wow! You are talented in so many areas!

I love the different look of the quilt!

And that bag.

Just.

Wow.

Have a great weekend.