Farmer's Wife - Week 34

This week we'll be doing more HSTs and a few flying geese, and another set of almost twin blocks.  The blocks we are doing are:

• Block 41 - Friendship Star
• Block 42 - Fruit Basket
• Block 45 - Grape Basket

Block 41 - Friendship Star

Friendship Star requires almost no instructions, but here they are.  You'll need 5 squares cut 2 1/2 inches and 4 HSTs finished to 2 inches.  If you don't have the HST tutorial memorized by now, here is is.  The only tricky thing is making sure your HSTs are oriented properly to get the star or pinwheel look.

Block 42 - Fruit Basket

Fruit Basket and Grape Basket, below, are almost the same.  The only difference is the strips along the bottom and right side where the "base" of the basket is a little different.

The upper left section of the two blocks are identical, so I'll describe the section once here.

You will need the following parts:

• One white square cut 1 11/16 inches.
• Seven HSTs finished to 1 3/16 inches (trimmed to 1 11/16 inches).
• Two flying geese units finished to 2 9/16 x 1 3/16 inches. If you want to make 4 (and use two for Grape Basket) use this tutorial for a no-waste 4-at-a-time method.  If you want to just make two, here is a tutorial for a different method.
• One larger HST finished to 2 9/16 inches (you can make two with the tutorial if you want to use the same fabrics for both blocks).

For this block, the strips on the right and bottom start with two white strips cut 1 11/16 inches wide and 5 1/4 inches long.  Next, cut two blue squares 1 11/16 inches and draw a diagonal line with a pencil on the wrong side of each square.  Lay the squares on the end of each white strip, right sides together, making sure the diagonal lines are opposite or mirror image (click on the image below to make it larger). 

 Now sew along the pencil lines, trimming the extra fabric to 1/4 inch.  Iron.

Now you will need the final square, cut 1 11/16 inches, for the corner.  Sew this square to the end of one of the strips next to the blue triangle.  Sew the other strip to the right side of the larger block, then attach the last piece.

Block 45 - Grape Basket

Start this block the same way you did Fruit Basket above.

The make the strips for the right side and bottom, start with two white strips cut 1 11/16 inches wide and 4 1/16 inches long.  Make the triangles for the end of each strip by cutting a 2 3/8 inch square in half diagonally.  Sew these triangles to the end each strip, being sure to orient them opposite.

Attach the strips to each side of the larger block so that the triangles create a straight line.

The final triangle measures 2 3/8 inches on the two short sides, so using the rule of 7/8, cut a triangle that is 3 1/4 inches on the two short sides.  Sew this to the rest of the block to finish it off!

See instructions for Week 33 Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along.