Chart 61: Primrose, Block 85 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Primrose and Marcella share the long diagonal center piece, but Primrose squeezes 26 pieces into the same size corners filled with 4 triangles in Marcella. There are lots of little N-81 triangles. Cut with the legs on straight grain for easier piecing and pressing. Don’t forget to true up the triangle sub-units with the square template A-5 and triangel template A-6.

We cut 85A with the Multi Size Half Square Triangle Ruler. If you don’t own it, you can cut with the paper pattern, but the easiest way to get the corners on straight grain would still be to cut a 6-1/2 inch square first, place the pattern corner to corner and cut away the excess, as we did.

My Primrose Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Primrose:

From Marti Michell Chart #61
 

Visit these other Farmer's Wife Sew Along blogs, too, for sewing tutorials and other info about the Primrose block:

http://gnomeangel.com

http://www.ellisandhiggs.com/

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 60: Marcella, Block 56 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Nine Easy Pieces

Hold up your hand if you have already made Marcella. I’m guessing quite a few of you flipped through the 1930s Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt book and made a bunch of the “easy” blocks before we even started the Sew Along.

As we say on the PDF, it is not difficult to just use the printed-paper patterns and cut the 9 pieces and sew them together. Besides, we don’t actually have templates for those shapes.

Grainline Geek Alert

As grainline geeks, we wanted to make sure that the corners on 56B were on straight grain, not bias!  In addition, you know how we love to share ways to “teach the templates tricks"!

We hope you will enjoy reading how we cut the pieces for Marcella.

My Marcella Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Marcella:

From Marti Michell Chart #60
 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 59: Modified Mollie (Lorna), Block 63 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

A Funny Thing Happened When We Were Making Lorna

The From Marti Michell conversion charts for the 1930s Farmer’s Wife Sew Along are a huge team effort. Patti, Harriett and I all work together to make it happen. I do lots of the conversions, cutting of our blocks and write rough drafts of the instructions. Harriett helps with the conversions and does much of the actual sewing, following and correcting the instructions as she goes. Patti does the layouts and illustrates the instructions so effectively that you usually don’t even need to read them. Then she posts them for you.

Even though all three of us had looked at the finished Lorna block, it was at least 24 hours after she went up on the design wall that I noticed a little problem. Do you see it?

So, I got out a “Magic Mirror” and started looking. I felt like I was getting an eye exam. You know how the doctor says, “Better 1 (click) or 2? Better 3 or 4?” So I sent Harriett this text:

Better 1?



Or 2?



Just like the eye exam, we all had to compare 2 or 3 times to decide.

How about you? Better 1? Or 2?

My Modified Mollie Block: Lorna

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Lorna:

From Marti Michell Chart #59

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 58: Carrie, Block 21 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along, and Dimensional Carrie

Dimensional Carrie

Just as we finished making Carrie, I was reminded of the Dimensional Bow Tie block that we featured in Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Patchwork Blocks, Product # 8343.

To make this version you need 5 squares the same size, 3 for the bow tie and 2 for the background. To make a Dimensional Carrie quilt block those squares needed to be:

   6 in. (the desired finished size of the block)
 - 1 in. (the finished size of the sashing)
= 5 in.  =  4 sections @ 1-1/4 in. each + 1/2 in. seam allowance

Now I have 2 Bow Tie blocks!

And we have 2 PDFs for you to download this week!  I couldn’t resist making a 6-inch finished size Dimensional Carrie block! If you own Set Q, you can make one, too, using square template Q-c and the instructions in our BONUS "Dimensional Carrie" PDF!

It is hard to see the dimensional part in the picture, but almost impossible to look at it in life and not put a finger there to touch it. Will I use them both and pass on a block between now and the end? Replace a previous block? Make a bigger quilt? Or just enjoy having made it and shared it with you?

What About an 8-1/2 inch Dimensional Carrie (Bow Tie)?

“Why knot?” she couldn’t resist saying. In fact, you may want to make the 8-1/2 inch version first, because the smaller the squares, the tighter the knot to make.

Start with 2-1/4 inch cut squares. (If you owns Set E, that is template E-34.) The sashing strips will be 2 inches wide cut, 1-1/2 inches finished. I haven’t decided on my fabric for the 8-1/2 inch blocks, but “Kaffe” is in the running — hence the cute 3-1/2 inch Bow Tie block  (which is one quarter of an 8-1/2 inch Carrie block) shown at the top of this article.

My Carrie Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Carrie:

From Marti Michell Chart #58

BONUS CHART: Dimensional Bow Tie Technique
 

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

My Dimensional Carrie Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the PDF for the Dimensional Bow Tie technique:

BONUS PDF: Dimensional Bow Tie Technique

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 57: Our Block Paul or Farmer's Wife, Block 33 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Since so many of you have discovered the versatility of the #8037 Log Cabin Ruler for strip techniques, it seemed appropriate to use it to make one of the blocks it was designed to make, the Courthouse Steps variation of a Log Cabin block. I’ve named the block Paul – the token male in this quilt. He was a farmer, but he was also our family's attorney and good friend, and he spent a lot of time going up and down the Courthouse Steps!

(Click on the image to visit the Shades website.)

This quilt is called "Magic Steps" in our Log Cabin ABCs book, Product #8043. In case you are tempted to make a similar wallhanging or quilt, I’m going to share a secret  that is in the book. I learned it when looking at an antique quilt. It is quite common to see what I call  “double-wides ” in Courthouse Steps quilts. That happens when people make blocks all the same size (which is a sensible thing to do…) and all of the blocks start with pairs of light strips and end with dark or vice versa. Then, when the blocks are set together, the smooth stair step design you see in the quilt above doesn't happen because it is broken by the double wide strips.

Here is the Trick

In this block, the last pair of strips in the block are dark.

1. When the blocks are joined into horizontal rows, position the light strip on the sides and the dark strips on the top and bottom. But, don’t join them yet.

2. Cut additional strips of the light fabric(s) the same width as the strips in the block, and the length of the block. Sew them between each block and at each end of the rows.



3. To keep those new light strips from connecting when the rows are joined, cut dark strips the same width as the block strips and as long as the rows and sew them between the rows of blocks.

4. To complete the look, sew a dark strip on all four sides of the quilt interior as we did in the "Magic Steps" quilt shown at the beginning of this article.

Here is Paul, our Courthouse Steps Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Paul:

From Marti Michell Chart #57

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Sale-a-bration!

Our July 4th holiday weekend is coming, and that means parades, cookouts, fireworks -- and shopping! Even better, online shopping, right from home, so you can enjoy all the weekend fun and include some time for quilting, too. Maybe that means catching up on your Farmer's Wife blocks... or working on a UFO that you can't wait to finish... or starting a new project in patriotic fabrics!

Now through July 5 at midnight EDT (US Eastern Daylight Saving Time), we're offering 50% off all patterns and "Just (one shape) Templates", and 30% off all fabric and kits!  The bundle of "Just" templates is more than 50% off, and some kits even include the tool or several tools.  

Click here to shop our sale.

Do you know why we celebrate our independence on July 4?  You may be surprised!

Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

Chart 56: Augusta, Block 7 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

What Do Augusta and Long Skinny Sashing Stars
Have in Common?

One of the things I say a lot about our templates and tools is, 'The more you use them, the more you love them!" And the more you realize new ways they can help you cut better and sew more accurately. Avoiding seam rippers is such a good thing!

Having said that, you may still wonder why I’m talking about the Long Skinny Sashing Star Set. Well, if I hadn’t developed the Long Skinny Sashing Star Set (#8232) and the octagon frame layout you can create for 6-, 9- or 12-inch finished blocks, I might not have ever seen the easy solution for cutting and sewing the “X” sub-units in Augusta.

While I’m talking about it, I can’t stop without showing our favorite teenage boy quilt or a guy "who is still a teenager at heart" quilt. Pattern #8532 Long Skinny Smashing Sashings.

The triangles in Augusta do not have the same angles as the Long Skinny Sashing Stars Set, in fact, the “X” unit in Augusta is just another version of the famous “Peaky and Spike” triangles. However, it includes a cut-away trick to get the long triangles on the side with Peaky angles at both ends.  It is the sewing technique in the “X” triangles for Augusta that is the same as the units that make the octagon frame in "Let the Good Times Roll" shown above.

All of the rest of the pieces in Augusta are very straight forward pieces from Set B and Set D.

My Augusta Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Augusta:

From Marti Michell Chart #56
 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 55: Dorothy, Not Dinah Block #27 in the Farmer's Wife Sew Along

Dinah is a 52 piece block. She is not really template friendly. We could make Dinah using templates -- 27D is A-7 double-cut, 27E is A-7, 27 H, I and G pieces could be cut with the multi-size Peaky and Spike template set. 27A, B and F pieces would be easy to cut oversize and trim down. The end result just did not seem worth the effort.

So, we are replacing Dinah with a new block that we're calling Dorothy. My Mother had two friends named Dorothy who were both farm wives in the 1930s and both of them had children who were my friends. I was in the 4-H with the daughter of one and went to the Homecoming Dance my junior year with the son of the other. We all went to the same church.

Dorothy borrows Dinah’s best feature, the pinwheel Square Within a Square center, and allows it to be the design feature in the block. Dorothy is made with 24 pieces and is cut with template Set A.

My Dorothy Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link to download the Chart for cutting and making Dorothy:

From Marti Michell Chart #55
 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 54: Poppy Block 83 and Our Pippa, in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Who is Pippa?

Pippa is Poppy's cousin.  This block has exactly the same pieces as Poppy. Only the fabric arrangement has been changed.

 

More Adventures with Peaky and Spike

In our post with Chart 49, we included the basic information about Peaky and Spike. We shared how the two triangles are drafted and showed why the engineered corners make the sewing so easy! The last two blocks, Doris and Judy, incorporated the most common combination of the triangles and the arrangement that is perfect for the engineered corners.

However, in some patchwork blocks, like Poppy, the triangles can be sewn together in different ways BUT the acrylic engineered corners can not change. Guess what? Even though the corners can not change, the way we use them can change!

On the outer row of the Poppy block several Spike triangles are rotated and sewn together into a strip. If you trim off the corners the normal way, there is still guesswork for perfect alignment of the triangles. But follow the corner trimming instructions on page 2 of the PDF and you will sew a perfect row of Spike triangles.

Cutting Little Pieces with Big Tools

There is not a Peaky and Spike set in the template Set S, but template S-99 can be used to cut the strip width that you need. Then use the acrylic points from Set C, Set D or the Multi-size Peaky and Spike Set to complete the cutting.

Please Read, Then Cut and Sew

Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

It is such a good idea to familiarize your self with the directions before beginning to cut and sew. It is especially nice not to make a mistake when you have 64 pieces in a 6-inch block! If you read the instructions, then proceed step by step, I bet you will be just as happy with your finished block as I am with mine. 😊

My Pippa Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Pippa and Poppy:

From Marti Michell Chart #54
 

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

If you've read this far… 

Guess what?  We're having another contest!  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below to let us know if you're making Poppy or Pippa and you could win a set of our multi-size Peaky & Spike templates!  Contest ends June 13.  We'll use a random picker and post an update on this page to announce the winner, so be sure to check back on June 14 to see if your name is selected! The winner will have two weeks to contact us via our 800 number or by email. Our contact info is at http://www.frommarti.com/contact_us.shtml  If we don't hear from the winner by June 27, 2916, we'll select a new name and update this post with that person's name -- so be sure to bookmark this page!  Good luck and thanks for making your blocks with our templates!

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 53: Judy, Block #48 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Judy, or Jud-ay, Jud-ay, Jud-ay – People of certain generations simply can’t just say Judy once. If you're thinking about Clark Gable, you are way off base! And you might be surprised to know that Cary Grand said he never said “Jud-ay, Jud-ay, Jud-ay.”  He claimed that people have searched every movie he ever made and cannot find him saying that on film. It is believed that it started with a celebrity impersonator named Larry Storch. You can read the story here: http://www.carygrant.net/articles/judy.htm

In fact, when I hear or read the name Judy, I think of childhood memories of playing in the timber, riding ponies, or playing in the hay-mows on the farm. I’ve mentioned Judy in an earlier blog. She was my best friend from crawling age all through high school. Our family farm homes were only ¼ mile apart. I could talk all day about the fun we had growing up on Iowa farms, but…back to quilting!

Judy is just like last week’s Doris, except with a 4-patch center. They really could have been a 2-in-1 day pair of blocks.

If you liked the bonus Spike's Windmill quilt last week, you would probably really love Scrappy Sedona Star, one of our large patterns. The Scrappy Sedona Star was the first quilt I made using the “stack six fat quarters, cut all the pieces for the block  and rotate” technique. The only name I could find for the block in any book was the Elongated Eight-Pointed Star. It is just like Judy and Doris except even easier! The center square is just a square. The wide variety of arranging and setting the blocks into full-size quilts is what makes the pattern so much fun!

Can you believe all these quilts are made with the same Elongated Star block design?  I love this block!

Some of the quilts are made with 9-inch blocks and some have 12-inch blocks. Here's a picture of the pattern cover. It's our product # 8016.

Oh yes -- The reason it is called Scrappy Sedona Star is that Audrey Waite and Dee Lynn, who at the time ran a wonderful summer retreat called “Quilting in the Pines” in Flagstaff, AZ., saw my brand new quilt top at Quilt Market, loved it and wanted me to teach at the next retreat. When I told them the name, Audrey who lives in Sedona, politely suggested that she thought Scrappy Sedona Star sounded like a lot more fun! I wholeheartedly agreed! We're so proud that, over the years, our Scrappy Sedona Star pattern has helped a lot of quilters make friends with Peaky and Spike.

My Judy Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the link below to download the Chart for cutting and making Judy:

From Marti Michell Chart #53

 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 52: Doris, Block #29 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

Doris is the first block that actually uses the Peaky and Spike triangles. You can use these triangles so effectively, but they are difficult to cut accurately without acrylic tools, and they can be perplexing to sew if the tools don’t have engineered corners. The Peaky and Spike triangles in this block will be joined to make a 2-inch finished pieced unit.

On the PDF, we have shown you how to cut these pieces with Set D, which many of you have been using it for the past several months in different blocks. That set was designed for 4-inch finished size units, not 2-inch finished units like the ones needed for Doris -- but you can use templates in Set D to cut piece for Doris if you follow our instructions in the PDF.  The pieces in Set D fit with pieces in Set B (for 4-inch finished units). The shapes in Sets B and D are the same as Sets A and C (for 3-inch finished units). Those templates don't have markings for other sizes, but you can use them successfully to cut the Peaky and Spike pieces for Doris if you follow our instructions in the PDF. 

 

There is a good chance many of you own either Template Set C or Set D. Since it's critical to have an accurate angle and engineered corners, you can cut out the paper pattern printed from Laurie’s book to use as a guide for length and simply align the longest sides of the tool and the pattern for accurate cutting of both the angles and the engineered corners.

Multi-Size Peaky and Spike Tools

We do have a tool for easily cutting 2-inch finished size Peaky and Spike pieces for Doris. Our Multi-size Peaky and Spike template set, Product #8289, is a multi-size set that cuts these shapes for 2-inch to 6-inch units in half-inch increments, and it's super easy to use. If you think you might want to use the Multi-Size Peaky and Spike set, this is a great time to buy it, while everything on our site is 15% off -- until midnight on Memorial Day! 

Click here to visit our online store

Cutting with templates will allow you to get perfect grainline on the outside edge of the finished square, which is much harder to accomplish with paper-piecing.

Bonus Quilt Pattern!

One of our favorite quick-and-easy quilt designs using Peaky and Spike is Spike's Windmill, shown here from 5 is Fabulous, our Volume 5. In it, the blocks are 10 inches made with Set R of the Perfect Patchwork Templates. But I think you can see how easy it would be to make in any size if you own the Multi-size Peaky and Spike Set.

When you print the PDF Conversion chart, be sure to click the second link for a bonus handout on making Spikes Windmill!  We love this block!

My Doris Block

Click on the image for a larger view. Click the links below the images to download the Template Conversion Chart for cutting and making Doris.

From Marti Michell Chart #52

FREE Spike's Windmill Quilt Pattern
 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 51: Anne, Block #5, or our simplified Annie, in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

In this classic block of many names, both Brackman and Beyer give first publication credit to Laura Wheeler, 1937, who called it Road to Fortune in the Indianapolis Star. However, both say that in 1974, McCalls printed a special publication called “Antique Quilts” that included a quilt called Pinwheels made from this pattern, however, the date it was made is unknown.

When I looked at Anne, it seemed like just too many unnecessary pieces for a 6-inch block, so this is another block where I chose a little fusing and edge-stitch treatment. Download the PDF conversion chart for full instructions of my method. I also chose to use matching-size triangles for my spinning triangles, as is typical for this pattern.We call our simplified version "Annie."

You will see in the PDF, I took advantage of the engineered corners on our templates and used the stitch and flip method for the smaller triangles on 8 A2 triangles instead of cutting odd shapes.

Doing Justice to the Block 

Sometimes using a single block in a Sampler quilt does not do the block justice. This is a perfect example. Looking at one block, it is hard to imagine how neat the newly-created pattern will be when the blocks touch. Usually we call that the secondary pattern, but I have seen at least one quilt where I think the secondary pattern shows equally or better than the pinwheel that is at the center of this block. Looking at one block with a pair of mirrors on adjacent sides of the block reveals the new design:

If you can, locate a copy of the beautiful book Mississippi Quilts by Mary Elizabeth Johnson, published in 2001 by University Press of Mississippi. Among other terrific antique quilts shown in the book, there is a great photo and story about this quilt on page 127. The quilt shown in the book was a gift from a group of quilters involved in a WPA program to their supervisor in Hancock Co. Mississippi. The quilt is very scrappy ’30s fabrics with a white background, except most of the smallest corner pieces were pink and green, making a consistent pink and green star where the corners of the blocks come together.

The book is the result of the Mississippi Heritage Quilt Search Project; for those of you who go to Paducah every year, you may remember this special exhibit at the 2001 Rotary Antique Quilt Show. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government program during the Depression which promoted handcrafts, including quilting.

On a Similar Topic

I love the state quilt search documentation books and have many of them. Like Mississippi Quilts, these books are treasure troves of quilt history. If you are interested in knowing more about quilts that were made in your area, you will find a starter list of search project books by state here: http://www.booksandoldlace.com/quilting/StateQuiltHistoryBibliography.htm

My Annie Block

Click the links below to download the Template Conversion Chart for cutting and making Annie:

From Marti Michell Chart #51
Block #5 in the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along 

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.

Chart 50: Lady, Block #50 in the Farmer's Wife Sew Along

This week's block, Lady, is just like any lady who invited you to sit down, rest a minute and have a relaxing cup of tea. The block provides a moment to relax halfway through the 1930s Farmer’s Wife Sew-Along. Had you noticed this is post #50? Yes! We have reached the summit and are now on the downhill side!

It is also a good moment to reflect on the farmer’s wife letter associated with the block. It is a very nice reminder to pause and think sweet thoughts or “Look for the silver lining and find the sunny side of the street.” Those words are from a song the farmer’s wives of the 1920s and 1930s might have enjoyed on the radio. It was written in 1919 and published in 1920. The music was by Jerome Kern and lyrics by B.G. DeSylva. Judy Garland renewed the song's popularity in the 1940s and Andy Williams again in the late ’50s. According to Wikipedia, those of you who watched Downton Abbey may remember hearing it during a memorable dance scene between Lady Mary and Matthew Crowley (Season 2, Episode 8). For the record, for all of the period accuracy portrayed in the show, that episode would have actually pre-dated the publication of the song, but only by several months.

The large central square in Lady called out to me for a novelty print. It would also have been a perfect space to show off a fussy cut, carefully centered motif. And that suggestion gives me the opportunity to mention one of our latest tools, the Fussy Cutter, Product #8297.

About the Block

Even though we included information about mirror image pieces on the template conversion chart, this is really one block where it will not matter if the seams aren’t reflective, as long as the triangles are. It is just another chance to practice mirror image techniques.

My favorite part of this block is that I do always love being able to accurately cut a shape for which I don’t actually have a template, as we did with A-7.

Along that line, I haven’t mentioned More Bang for the Buck! recently. One of the many things I love in this book is the section on template tricks that shows how to cut many other shapes for which you don’t have the actual template. However, the entire book is geared toward helping you see more opportunities to use the templates you own. We know that the more you use them, the more you love them! Here are some of the things you are missing if you don’t own “More Bang for the Buck.”

• More ways to use Perfect Patchwork Templates
• Ways to convert ruler-cutting instructions to template cutting
• Rotary cutting tips – More specifically, template rotary cutting tips!
• Why and how to cut strips the Marti Way
• Ways to teach your templates magic tricks for cutting shapes that have no template
• Tips for cutting connector blocks
• Why you want to be a Grainline Geek!
• Why 1.414 is a quilter’s favorite number
• How to calculate fabric requirements – or just use the Strip Yield Charts!
• To make Four Patches the Marti Way –It’s faster than strips!
• To use the versatile Patchwork Trio in hundreds of block designs
• Why Square Within a Square units are so easy and accurate with templates
• And practice new techniques making the Toad in a Puddle quilt shown on the back cover.

My Lady Block

Click the links below to download the Template Conversion Chart for cutting and making Lady.

From Marti Michell Chart #50

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

The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt: Inspiring Letters from Farm Women of the Great Depression and 99 Quilt Blocks That Honor Them by Laurie Aaron Hird for Fons & Porter/F+W.