I made my first barn block today. Boy was it harder than I thought it was going to be. I have such a hard time with my quarter inch seam. No matter what I do it never turns out as it should. I measure from the needle out and I have even put tape on my machine to make sure I have something to follow. The little block gave me a hard time but over-all I think it turned out ok. These instructions could be made either by paper piecing or using templates. I made templates and cut my pieces out and sewed on the machine. I was regreting not sewing them by hand, they would have turned out perfect if I had. :) I really love this block and cannot wait to make the next one. I am not sure I will follow the pattern for the wall hanging, I may arrange them differently since I will be using all different sky prints. Here is the web site where I got the pattern. http://thegoldenthimble.com/clubhouse.html
Jan, your barn is MAGNIFICENT! No matter what difficulty you had in putting it together, you have done a wonderful job. It looks so 'real' that I initially thought it was a barn picture that you were following. Well done Jan.
ReplyDeleteI think your block looks great too! I wanted to make those blocks. I found the site last month (I think) but forgot about it (oops!). Going to have to re-check it out and maybe if I stop sleeping I'll have time to make it...
ReplyDeleteI love these barn blocks I see popping up in blog land. Your's is just lovely :0)
ReplyDeleteCrispy
Jan, I'm a sucker for barns, but as a farm girl, that's a given! Love it!!!
ReplyDeleteAre you including the width of your needle in the 1/4 inch measurement? I place my needle in the "needle down" position, with the presser foot up, and measure with my Omnigrid ruler from the left side of the needle to get my accurate 1/4 inch.
Having said that, I agree that getting mini blocks in hard with a machine, and that I can get it exactly right by hand-piecing it. I will be posting photos of my miniature quilts soon. Back then I was machine piecing these little blocks, and for some of the tiniest blocks, I made twice as many as I needed (with thumb nail sized scraps in a letter-sized quilt, I figured fabric wastage to be a non-issue) and selected the ones that came out best.
Anyway, this is a cute block and I hope you enjoy the process.
~ Ronda
Oh wow! What a GREAT Barn block. I love this. To tell you the truth, I can't think of when I've seen one like this. This is SO adorable and charming. Impressive.
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