Finished the Farmer's Wife quilt

This one is my version of the Farmer's Wife quilt.  I started this back in Nov/2011.  I set myself a task of doing one block a week for 52 weeks.  However, as usual life got in the way and this got put aside.  From time to time I would take it out to look at it, but I was never too keen on getting back into it.  I'd only do a couple of blocks here and there.

When I started the American Patchwork and Quilting UFO Challenge, I included this quilt.  I was tired of looking at it and thought if it was on the list, it would force me to finish it.  Initially, I couldn't understand why I lost interest in these blocks.  I went from looking forward to making this quilt to actually hating it.

I tried to figure out why I didn't like it anymore.  The initial layout is simple sashing between the blocks, so at one time I thought it was because I didn't like the layout, so I came up with a different layout.  I thought it might have been because all the different blocks were just too busy, so I adjusted the layout a bit more to separate the blocks with their own border.  

In the end, I realized that it was the colourway of the blocks that I didn't like.  It looked muddy, boring and blah, whereas I prefer cheerful, bright with colours instead.  

When this quilt came up in the challenge for April, I had debated abandoning it.  I posted about it on the Facebook group for the challenge and got numerous suggestions and encouragement.

I'd have to say that the one that really hit me was to stop where I am at and finish it.  What the person meant was, don't make anymore blocks, just stop making them and work with what I already had to complete it.  So back to the drawing board I went to redesign it one last time.  I was luck in that I had 24 blocks, a good number that divided up well across and down.

In my last draft I used the remaining fabrics to make the scrappy strip pieces to frame the blocks and sashed those.  In doing this I almost used up all my "ugly" to me muddy fabric.

I quilted edge to edge clam shells to keep it close to period.  I realize there are many who like the civil war type fabrics, however I can't say the same.  I don't mean any disrespect, but I found it torcher to work with these colours.

I am going to give this quilt away, so I will have to find someone who likes this colourway.  

Now I can actually call this done.  It's done!!!