The Farmers Wife and the reason for a Simple Question

 I am starting a new project

No, I have not finished with the last one yet but that's how I roll.

I bought the Farmers Wife books a few years ago looking for a pattern I eventually found in a magazine, go figure.

As with most impulse purchases, it's hit or miss as to weather or not I will get to them, or they will be something I move around the sewing room and thumb through occasionally.

I think part of the early "Meh" I had about this book, was that it's instructions are archaic.

they call for templates cut out for each piece and put the "ick" in piecing.

but a little bit of cleaver maths, (See my previous post below) and most of the patterns are converted into easy peasy modern methods.

all you really have to remember, is no matter what size you are sewing, every seam adds half an inch.

Ok, that may be to vague.

This may end up sounding like "Toon logic" to you but its how my squirrely brain works, so bear with me. 

Mind I haven't gotten to the more difficult blocks, with tons of parts or odd offset bits, so this formulae may only work out for the mostly easy squares and half square triangle blocks.

Anyhoo, It's my wisdom, such as it is, and It goes like this; 

#2 Autumn Tints

to get a 6.5" finished block with  4x4 pieces you have 1 seam which adds .5" 

this would make a single square 3.5", since its a 4x4 each square in the block should be trimmed to this size.

   3.5 x 2 = 7 - .5 (for the seam down the middle*) = 6.5"

*I don't count a 4x4 as 2 seams, which it obviously is because the maths are harder and I am lazy, so I only count the upper row. 

I have done about 10 blocks of the 111 in the book and this formulae has worked a treat so far!

Then we get to subcuts, same formulae, 2x2=4 - .5= 3.5

I can not stress how important trimming and ironing between every stage is!

#4 basket weave

 

 You also want to starch BEFORE you cut anything.

these little tips I give out for free, ha!

So that means the 3 seams per square in this block will be

1.5 x 3 = 4.5 - 1" = 3.5  Voila!

I'm a genius!

So this next one, is the block that got me to the Simple Question and it's attendant blogs.

I figured it out but not till cutting up a bunch of fabric in experiments and trying to explain to my hubs what I wanted.

My simple formulae works here too

#6 Big Dipper

even for half square triangles (AKA the HST)

This is how I worked it out;

You want a 3.5" block to get 2 HST you start with a 4.5" square 

if you want 4 you add 2" (Because triangles act differently than squares, mumble, mumble square root of 2) this gives you 

a  6.5"square, sew 4 seams around the outside edge all the way around (-2"=4.5) cut this from corner to corner this gives you,

4/  4.5"HST cut those in half.  Sewn together > gives you 

4/ 3.5" hourglass blocks.

now all of this does leave you with bits to trim off to the proper size. but it does work out.

I was giddy with my accomplishments, when I put it all together 

Addendum: I am not sure how well this works out if the blocks get over 12" The square root of two does some wonky things in the macro.

Take thAt mr. Marion! The worst H.S. algebra teacher EVER, The man completely put me off math for decades and not just because he flunked me out freshman year.

For those of you not inclined to follow me down the rabbit hole of "I DO IT!" 

You want this lady and fellow, better blogger than me, Karen Walker, who has done all the hard work of teaching other people in classes on youtube and sells her method of piecing at her shop Laugh into Stitches. You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the farmers wife lessons and she has broken it up into 12 bite size bits, to get all 111 blocks, at about 12 - 15 at a time for about $9 a lesson. 

I may inveigle myself of her services when I get to some of the harder blocks but right now I am having fun figuring it out, and lets face it, I'm cheep.