Lily and Lex' build a barn (out of fabric, of course)

You may remember

(though - you may not, since it's been ages....)

that the girls and I are reading the Little House books 

and they are sewing up quilt blocks to go along with them.

(thank you, Amy!!)

They started out gung ho,

but lost steam after just a few weeks.

I wouldn't go any further in the books

until they got caught up on the blocks,

so we were sort of at a stand still for several months.

There's no 'sort of' about it - we were at a standstill...
Smack in the middle of Farmer Boy.

I'd ask them periodically about the quilt

(if they didn't want to make one -

then we could proceed with the books)

and they always said they still wanted to make the quilt,

but they never felt like working on it.

Then one day,

a few weeks ago,

out of the blue,

Lexi said she wanted to sew.

I said, "You going to finish your cat block?"

(she only had 2 seams to go...)

and she said she guessed she would.

And she proceeded to finish it,

and then made another block,

then both girls chose fabrics for their barn blocks

(and their maple leaf, and sheep blocks, too

but let's not get ahead of ourselves...)

Because I am a little bit template challenged

(though it's not nearly as bad as my paper piecing challenged!)

I changed up how we did the barn block

so that it could be made with just rectangles and squares

and I removed seams where I could.

As a reminder,

I cut, and sometimes pin for them,

(they are 10 and 8)

but they sew and press.

Lexi starches;
Lily does not.

With this barn block,

the girls learned what a flying geese block is

and how to make one.

They also learned about adding corners to create diagonal seams

without using half square triangles.

Lexi wanted to frame out her door, 

so she learned one way to do that.

They are both so different in their approach to sewing.

When I was cutting Lily's silo,

I asked which way she wanted the fabric to run,

and she said, "I really don't care".

And she meant it.

Lexi not only cares,

she knows which element in the fabric she wants centered...

Lily likes making the blocks okay,

but what she really loves,

is making tiny things.

So while Lexi was taking her turn at the machine,

Lily was working on another Little House quilt.

Now that they are all caught up on their blocks, 

we can get back to reading

😀

linking up with backpack-makin' Amanda Jean