SOME SEWING ACCOMPLISHED

I have been sewing, finally!  My sewing machine is fixed and working great.  

Here are the last 2 Moda Blockhead Blocks that I have made.

Block #26

Block #27

Then I decided to start a quilt for my youngest GS made out of men's shirts.  I have one made for his brother and want to give them both one for Christmas.  I considered several patterns and finally decided on this one:  Scrappy Mountain Majesties.  The pattern is available on Bonnie Hunter's web site here.  This is what I have so far and I have some more pieces cut.

This is the fabric that I bought at Top Stitch in Medford, OR on Tuesday.  The bird fabric is a panel and I got 2 of those.

I tried to load some more pictures of the quilting I'm working on for my Flags of the American Revolution quilt, but didn't have any luck, so I'll try to get them loaded and post in a couple days.  I'm almost finished with the quilting!!

Have a great week!

Well, my sewing machine is fixed, but I don't have anything to show you because we took a short trip down to Medford OR to see where our DS#1 flies to every day,  On the way we stopped at the historic Wolf Creek Lodge, in Wolf Creek, OR, which was built in 1883.

Over the years many famous people have stayed at the inn, with Clark Gable, his wife, and Jack London topping the list.

Room that Clark Gable stayed in

The state park ranger told us about a ghost town, named Golden, nearby, so we also went there.  I assume the reason it has the name Golden is because of all the gold that was mined there out of the creek.

Church built in 1852.

My son flies freight from Portland, OR to Medford, OR daily in this ATR aircraft, which can carry up to 10,000 pounds of freight.  Below is his picture on the left and his co-pilot on the right.

It was fun being able to see where he goes and get to see the airplane up close as well.

I was able to visit a couple quilt shops accidentally on purpose.  One was Top Stitch, in Medford, which is a Bernina shop, but has a lot of fabric.  The second one was Country Lady Quilt Shop in Roseburg, OR.   Country Lady had a lot of women in there sewing and having way too much fun.   I forced myself to buy some fabric in each shop, but some was for a friend, so I wasn't real bad.  The scenic drive down I-5 is just amazing!

Now I'm trying to catch up and get things back to normal.   

MORE QUILTING AND ANOTHER FINISH

It seems like I've been quilting my little heart out these days, but there is a pause.  My sewing machine is in the shop, so I got my Featherweight out and was happily piecing some blocks when I noticed the tension was really bad.  I couldn't get it fixed no matter what I did, so when I get my Janome back,  I will take in my Featherweight!  In the mean time, I'm trying to get a little organized.

I had already finished quilting Mama's cross stitched Paragon quilt top and now I finished binding it, so here are a few pictures again taken outside with the quilt hanging on a clothes line.  The sun is shining through it some.  I bound it in a solid blue to match the flowers.  I had to fold the top over the clothes line so it wouldn't dangle on the ground.

Next project is quilting Flags of the American Revolution.  I decided to quilt it with large baptist fans except for the center eagle block.  I purchased the baptist fan template from Barb here.  It is perfect for this quilt.  Barb created her own large fan template when she couldn't find one this size anywhere.  I'm really glad I got it and think I will use it more often from now on.
 

Here's a picture of the template.  One fan measures 14 1/2" high and wide.  I'm marking it one fan at a time with a Clover roll on powder.  It works pretty well, except as you quilt, some of the powder rubs off and it's hard to see the lines, but this way I'm not using any sort of pen and don't have to worry about the marks staying in when they are not supposed to.  I guess I'm afraid to use pens.

I will be hanging Dear Jane's Quilting Journey at the Treasurers in the Attic Quilt Show in McMinnville, OR on Sept. 16.  It's at the Yamhill County Heritage Museum.  If you are in the area, I hope you can come by to see it and many other quilts.  You can also have some antiques appraised for $5.00 each.  If you come, look for me at my vendor's booth.

FINISHED WITH DEAR JANE!!!!!

I can hardly believe that I finished this quilt, but it's true!!  From my first sight of a few Dear Jane replicas at the Fort Worth, Texas quilt show in 2008, when I was so impressed by it, then thinking about should I or shouldn't I (or could I?), for about 5 years, until I received the Dear Jane Book for Christmas in December, 2013, I just wasn't sure.

But, when I received the book from DS#3/DIL (after having it on my Christmas list for a few years), that clinched it!  I finished the first block (A1) on 1/22/2014.  I took the last stitch on the binding 8/28/2017.  That's about 3 years, 7 months and 6 days.  

I definitely could not have done it without the "Dear Jane" book by Brenda Papadakis and this web site.  I also received a lot of encouragement from Kathleen Tracy's Dear Jane Support Group on Yahoo.  Not to mention tons of encouragement from my Blogging Buddies group and many other bloggers, friends and family (especially my ever loving and supportive DH!!).

After all the paper piecing (PP) that I did on it, I should be an expert, but no, I continued to have to rip out many of the PP seams, probably due to always being in a hurry to get things done.  My DS#1 hung a clothes line for me, which has made taking pictures of quilts much easier.

My piecing, appliqué and quilting certainly isn't perfect and I broke down and included many instances of machine appliqué because I was just tired of trying to appliqué a tiny triangle measuring about 3/8" by hand.  I even PP some of the diamond shapes at the points of the border triangles - anything to make it easier.

Each of the colored fabrics in the 169 5" square blocks in the center section is different, and each of the colored fabrics in the 52 border triangles is different from each other.  I used a variety of background fabrics for all the blocks trying to use fabrics that would look good with the main colors of each block.  My sashing, corner kite blocks and scallops is a good quality muslin.

As you can see above, Jane Stickle added to the original quilt that there are 5,602 pieces in the quilt.  I didn't take the time to count, but that is probably close!  I wonder what she was thinking when she made her quilt in 1863 and what she would think if she knew that hundreds or thousands of women all over the world are copying her quilt.  How did she come up with so many designs, because each block is unique!

As you can see, I am one happy quilter!!

Now for the name.  I decided to name it DEAR JANE'S QUILTING JOURNEY (from Texas to Oregon).

Thanks again for all your support over the past 3 1/2 years!