Chart 15: Paper Flowers and Jewel, Block 46 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Jewel provides a little diversion. It is not a template-friendly block, but with only 16 pieces, it is quite easy to cut with a paper pattern that includes a 1/4-inch seam and sew as we would normally machine-piece a patchwork block. See the PDF Template Conversion Chart for my method of rotary cutting using the paper pattern printout from the disc with the book.

The yellow and gray pieces shown in the book are mirror image pairs of asymmetrical pieces. If your sewing experience includes making garments, you will immediately understand that cutting these pieces with the fabric folded wrong sides together is like cutting vest or shirt-fronts.

Another If

If your sewing experience includes making garments, the chances are around 90% that you have bought and ultimately saved patterns. That brings up a new issue — what to do with those patterns now!

I was enthused about a possible solution when someone suggested to me that you could trace a quilting design on an old dress pattern, pin that to a quilt and machine quilt right through the tissue because it was easy to tear away. I did it once and thought it was okay. Later, someone else told me the tissue would have been easier to remove if I had sprayed it with a fine mist of water. I'll try that next time.

So Another Diversion

Even though there is no expiration date on dress patterns, we thought it would be fun to share some things to do with dress patterns each time we just cut and sew a Farmer’s Wife block with a paper pattern. Today’s fun is an accordion pleated method for making tissue flowers. We loved the version we found on:

http://invitationtothebutterflyball.blogspot.com/2010/07/paper-flower-tutorial-using-vintage_24.html

Here is one flower shown with my Jewel block. I made it with 4 layers of dress pattern tissue, cut 5 by 8 inches and accordion folded in about 3/4-inch wide folds. The ends were cut to a point and I also made tiny little “v” cuts at the center where I replaced the wire shown in the flower tutorial with a plastic twist-tie. I used the twist-tie to secure the flower to my red pen so it will be easier to find! Fun!

My Jewel Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link to download the Template Conversion Chart for Jewel:

From Marti Michell Template Conversion Chart #15
 

In addition to our template conversion PDF download, you will want to read Gnome Angel's tutorials for these blocks.