Welcome to the third weekly post in the year long project of the Farmer's Wife 1930s Quilt Along. Block five is is 'Anne' (p.164, letter p.46) Jo is posting about this block over at A Life in Lists. A little note for foundation piecers, because of the way the pattern is designed your block will spin the opposite way to the block in the book. Technically, the pattern pieces needed to be reversed to match the book photo. Jo goes into this on more detail on her post. Fabric Credits Kokka Lighthearted Kitchen Floral in Mustard Windham Tiger Lily Roses in Blush Kona Mango Block six is 'April' p.165, letter p.134: Fabric Credits Robert Kaufman Fabrics, Penny and Friends, Square Dance Camelia Bella Solids in Peacock Kona Corn Yellow I found the construction of this block relatively straightforward, but there are an awful lot of pieces which are easy to muddle up, the block pattern is seen more clearly on point rather than square on and choosing the right level of contrast was hard! I went through three combinations before I got the contrast right! Less is more: reducing the number of patterned prints in a block works better for me than two or three patterns, and if in doubt, use a solid. There's a reason that these blocks work well with 1930s reproduction prints. The small, often multi directional designs lend themselves to tiny pieces. These are my various combinations and I am not totally sold on the colours I finally went with but some blocks are going to end up at the end of rows cut in half and this may be one! Foundation Paper Piecing Fabric Cutting These shapes are all rectangles, squares or right angled triangles so this is a very straightforward block to cut out. I used the rotary cutting instructions for all the shapes with the addition of ½" so for example a 2" square would become a 2 ½" square which adds some extra fabric for foundation piecing. For shapes A1, B1, C1, D1, I cut out 2 ½" squares. As these are the first pieces in theses sections, they will get trimmed to shape as you add the triangles (A2 and A3 etc). You can download a free guide to foundation paper piecing here. The tricky part of this block is not the piecing, it's the arranging the colours and fabrics and getting them in the right order to piece. The block is symmetrical when on point but not when square on (the symmetry line is diagonal). I used a dash of coloured pencil to keep myself sane and I looked a lot at the photograph on page 165 as I was piecing. These things made my piecing easier! check your fabrics for contrast colour code pieces on foundation patterns remove paper just before stitching sections together check your block with the book images square on and on point When it comes to joining the sections. I trimmed them down, removed the paper just before I was ready to join so I knew I had the right piece and the right orientation and then pressed the seams to the side so they would nest together with their corresponding section. This makes joining a lot easier! There is an instruction to 'Sew these three large sections together as in block diagram'. It's slightly confusing because the block diagram has rows joined horizontally and the foundation method has columns joined vertically. Any questions, please comment and I'll answer below. Use #fw1930sqal on Instagram and there's also a Flickr group if you like to share there. You can also copy and paste links to any of your blog posts for these blocks into the comments - I'd love to visit and take a look. For individual blocks, you can use #anneblock and #aprilblock on Instagram I'll be introducing this post on Periscope with a short broadcast talking about contrast with fabrics around 2.15pm GMT today and it'll be available for 24 hours to replay before it disappears! Link will be in my twitter feed @verykb Please note: I have linked to my sponsors on items bought through them and elsewhere for anything that has come from other shops. Don't forget to visit Jo's post on Anne. Back next Monday with Justine and blocks 7 and 8.