DEAR JANE REPORT FOR MARCH

I finished Row J of my Dear Jane quilt plus 2 triangles.  So, I am on track for finishing the inner blocks by the end of June.  Woo Hoo!!

Most of these blocks were pretty easy and then came J-10 with 16 appliqué leaf shapes.  Last week I watched a free program from "The Quilt Show" and in it Kim Diehl was demonstrating her method of machine appliqué.  I kept looking at the 16 leaf shapes to appliqué and I decided to machine sew them with invisible thread (like Kim does).  I figured that if she can do it, so can I.  I hope I won't be arrested by the quilt police, but all that hand needlework is hard on my hand.  

Here's J-10 in all it's machine appliqué glory!  Actually, this is the second time I did machine appliqué on a block, but the other one was only 4 tiny triangles.  Actually, paper piecing wasn't done in 1863 either, so I guess I guess it doesn't hurt to use modern techniques on appliqué.  As someone told me before, if Jane could have, she probably would have done it too!

J-10 Machine Applique

 I think J-13 is my favorite block from this row.  I really like how it looks and I love the black fabric.  My photos aren't the best because my sewing room isn't really very light even during the day.

J-13

Onward to Row K for April.  Actually, I already have the fabrics picked out and most of the blocks are paper piecing.  I'm actually getting to like PPing!!

UFO FINISHED!

I am so happy to have this UFO finished!  This was my travel project when I retired in 2009 and I started it in December on our first trip after I retired when we traveled by car to Florida.  I had my new (to me) Featherweight along and worked on these blocks in the motel at night.  The name of it is "Scrappity Do Dah" and it was a free pattern that came in a quilting magazine promotion.  It measures 88" x 98" to be a generous queen size.  

Scrappily Do Dah

Here are some close ups of different areas of the quilt so you can see some of the fabrics and the quilting.

Backing fabric has tiny buttons on it.

Another UFO is almost finished.  I started this one a few years ago when Barristers Block had a sew-a-long.  I didn't finish it then, but this year she had another SAL, so I got it out and now I'm quilting it.  It's a Bullseye quilt with raw edges that will fray after I wash it, which I will do after I'm done quilting and binding it.  I'm about half way finished with the quilting.  First I stitched in the ditches and now I'm quilting around the circle (bulls eye) and adding a leaf shape in the corners.  I think that will be enough quilting.  I might quilt feathers in the border.

I'm almost finished with this table runner that I'm making for my Etsy shop.  I just need to sew the binding to the back.  

I bought the backing fabric a toile with birds on it while on a shop hop a few weeks ago in Grandma's Quilt Shop located in Dallas, Oregon.  It's a small town about 20 miles from where I live now.

A week ago I got lucky at an estate sale where there was literally tons of fabric, quilt kits, cross stitch kits and yarn for sale.  I purchased a bunch of fabric for $1/yard as well as kits that I am listing in my Etsy shop.  I'm still not finished listing items from this sale.

Happy quilting!

ISSUES AND TAXES

I'll get the frustrations out of the way first.  I've had issues with my IMac for several months and have talked to Apple support quite a few times.  They have reconfigured my computer, but not everything was fixed and I kept putting off calling them again because it always takes forever.  Well, yesterday I finally forced myself to call them and it looks like things are just about fixed.  It wasn't that I couldn't use the computer, but one of my most important genealogy files was missing (its found now!) and some photos are still missing.  So tomorrow one of the senior agents is going to call me back and hopefully get that fixed.

The other frustration was just getting all my income tax stuff put together and that is almost finished, so I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Yea!

Here's the civil war Westering Women's block from Barbara Brackman's Civil war blog for February. It was a very easy block.  I'm planning to make all the blocks red, white and blue.

I found this doll bed at an antique shop and couldn't resist it.  DH is going to fix it up and either refinish or paint it.  I came across the green stripe at a quilt show vendor's booth and thought it would be perfect to cover the mattress.  I plan to make a quilt for it and a pillow and will sell it, hopefully, next December.

Now that my "issues" are almost resolved, I think I'll work on my Dear Jane blocks for March!

Spring is almost here!

RETREAT ON THE COAST

Last Friday I went on a retreat with my church to Lincoln City, Oregon on the Pacific Coast.  On the way there, we stopped for lunch at the Otis Cafe, in Otis, OR.  It's a tiny "hole in the wall" place that has become quite famous for their delicious and generous meals.  We stuffed ourselves with yummy food and continued on to the retreat.

Saturday turned out to be a pretty nice day and we were able to get out to walk on the beach for a little while.  The ocean waves are so amazing to me - a girl who grew up in the mid-west.  During our song fest times we could look out the window at the ocean and the words of one of the songs we sang were very meaningful:

Filled with wonder,

Awestruck wonder,

At the mention of Your Name.

Jesus, Your Name is power.

Clothed in rainbows of living color,

Flashes of lightning,

Rolls of thunder.

Me on the beach

This is the house I stayed in and there was another one just like it, plus a small house.  I think there were 60 women all together, some coming just for Saturday.  We live about an hour from the coast.

I've been busy since I came home.  One thing I've been doing is making a cape for my grandson, who is in 2nd grade.  He needs to dress up like the Pronoun super hero.  My part is to make the orange cape.  It's almost finished, so I can get it in the mail later today.  They didn't have any "fun" methods to teach grammar when I was in school.  Here's the link to the grammar site if you are interested.

Thanks for visiting my blog!  Have a great weekend.

TWO FINISHES!

I had a little spare time, so I put together a small donation quilt with some squares that were available at my quilters' guild.  I decided not to put batting inside it because I used flannel for the backing and thought this would be a good summer quilt.

I also took the easy way out and turned it instead of binding it.  Then I quilted with Xs across the blocks and used a fancy stitch for the edges.  It didn't take too long and I hope someone will like it.

Here's my finished brown/pink basket wall hanging measuring at 38" wide x 48" long.

Close up of some blocks so you can see the quilting better.

The sashing was quilted with a very easy stitch which you can see in the pink between the brown triangles.

I'm going to hang this at a memory care facility that has asked our guild to loan quilts to help decorate the walls in their new facility.  We will go their after our next meeting and take some wall hangings for them, which we will leave for as long or as short a time as we wish.

Friday I'm going on a weekend retreat for the ladies at my church.  We're going to Lincoln City, OR on the beautiful Pacific coast.  It will probably rain a lot, but hopefully we can get out to walk on the beach a little.  I'll take a few pictures to post.  

E PLURIBUS UNUM

E PLURIBUS UNUM  is quilted, bound and labeled.  It measures 28" x 35" and I made it to fit on my hanging quilt rack.

I also finished Row I of Dear Jane for February!  I think setting the goal is really helping me get this going.  Some of the blocks were super easy and others had around 40 tiny pieces and they were paper pieced of course.  Actually, every block was paper pieced except 5, 6 and 11.  Number 7 was paper pieced and then had a teeny tiny triangle on each side.  I cheated by using fusible web and machine appliquéd those because I had read comments by other women that just couldn't get them straight.  

I'm on a roll!  Thanks for visiting!

SHOP HOP AND FABRIC SHOPPING THOUGHTS

I just finished quilting this UFO, which has been hanging in my closet for several years.  Today I sewed on the binding and moved it into the living room so I can hand sew it to the back while watching TV.

I'm so glad to have this almost finished.  A friend of mine bought me the pattern after she saw me admiring the made up sample in a quilt shop.

I stitched in the ditch first, then quilted feathers in the brown setting triangles.  Once it is totally done I'll take a better picture of the quilting so you can see how I quilted each section.

A friend and I went to 8 shops on the "Snowflakes and Stitches Shop Hop" - 6 of them on Monday.  Below you can see my purchases.  I bought more than I had been planning on buying - surprise, surprise!  I have some projects in mind.

When shopping, I always look for the "scrap bin" that some quilt shops have to see if I can get some scraps that I can use.  I didn't take a picture of them, but Grandma's Attic in Dallas, OR had one and you can fill a plastic bag with as much fabric as you can squeeze in for $4.99.   I debated doing it, but decided to see if there was enough fabric I liked to make it worth while.   I starting wondering how much fabric you actually got for that amount of money.  One of the other shops in the shop hop is our local quilt shop, Boersma's Sewing Center and they have a little chest of drawers with scraps in them - those scraps cost 50⍧ per ounce.  I wondered if that was a better deal than a baggie for $4.99.

So when I got home, I decided to weigh some fabric to see how much one yard weighs.  I weighed 4 fat quarters and they weighed 4 1/4 oz.  One yard of a different fabric weighed 6 oz.  So, I kind of averaged it out and figured that 5 oz. is about what one yard of cotton fabric weighs.  So, I weighed the baggie from Grandma's Attic and it weighed 11 oz.  That means that I got approximately 2 yards of fabric for $4.99.  If I bought $5 worth of scraps from Boersmas, which would be 10 oz, I would get approximately 2 yards.   So, I think that price is pretty good.

Am I the only nutty quilter who loves to dig through the scrap bins?  Please don't tell me that I am!

And, oh, BTW, my friend and I both agreed that the best shops we went to were Boersma's Sewing Center, Greenbaum's Quilted Forest, Grandma's Attic, and The Quilted Hill.

OREGON'S 157th BIRTHDAY

I have been busy quilting my E Pluribus Unum wall hanging.  I'll try to get it bound soon.

Close up of the quilting - Cross hatching inside the panel and feathers all over the bow tie blocks.

I also finished a top that I started 2 years ago when Barrister's Block had a Quilt-A-Long.  I made 43 blocks then, but didn't finish it.  Now, she is having another Bullseye Quilt-A-Long and I got my top done.

There's a "Snowflakes and Stitches Shop Hop" going on although I haven't seen any snowflakes lately.  A friend and I went to one shop yesterday - The Quilted Hill in Yamhill, OR.  This shop had gone out of business a few years ago, but recently has reopened and it is out in the beautiful countryside of Western Oregon - picture of countryside below is taken looking at the view from the front of the shop, which is on a farm.  The picture is taken with my cell phone, so it doesn't do the view justice.

After shopping at The Quilted Hill, we went to the Yamhill County Historical Society to help celebrate Oregon's 157th birthday.    Here are a few pictures taken in the museum.

Quilt brought in a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail.

Treadle and hand crank sewing machines.

A quilt top at the museum (no information available)

If you live in Western Oregon, are you going to the shop hop?  We plan to go to some more shops on Monday, but I doubt we will make it to all 15 of them.  

NEW BOM, A FINISH AND DESIGN WALL

When I saw Barbara Brackman's new BOM, I had to join in.  It's only one block per month!  And she is adding lots of history about wagon trains going west - one of my favorite topics.  I love to read about the "Westering Women!"  Here is the first block.

Independence Square

I showed this quilt in December when it was just a top.  Now it's finished and will be donated to a child in the hospital.  I am demonstrating how to make the ten minute block at my guild today and this is the sample to show how it looks when put together,

When I was looking for backing I cam across this "cat" fabric in my closet.  The colors were perfect, but it wasn't quite enough.  That was easily fixed by surrounding it with this coral colored fabric.  I probably got the cat fabric at a garage sale.  The fabrics for the top of the quilt were from Good Will.

It was fun quilting the top with the squiggly lines.  Some of the quilting thread was variegated.  The purple shows up at dark blue in the photo.  I didn't really put 3 squares of blue together.

In September I participated in a "bow tie" block exchange and had been trying to decide how to use them.  Yesterday I saw the eagle block (found at a garage sale as well a few years ago) in my closet and when I put it up on my design wall with some of the bow tie blocks, I knew it was what I wanted.  It has to fit on a particular quilt hanger which is 29" wide and with 7 blocks across it comes to 28".  It's not all sewn together yet, but that shouldn't take long.  It will be nice to have another patriotic wall hanging for July 4th!

Have a great quilty week!

MY WEEK IN QUILTING/SEWING

 After last Sunday's quilt show, this week was a downer in some ways.  I have been under the weather, but not too sick to sew, quilt, read and watch TV.  I guess it's just a cold, but I feel very blah.  However, I can't sleep much during the day and get tired of TV and reading after a while.  So, I finished the Quilt of Valor - just need to put a label on it.

Quilt of Valor

Back of Quilt of Valor

The backing fabric came from Connecting Threads  and I am very happy with it.  I think I got it when they had a 50% off sale.

Then I decided to make Abby another outfit for her new 26" doll.  The first outfit that I made fit OK except the neckline on the blouse was too big.  I decided to make a blouse with elastic in the neck this time so she won't have that problem.  The fabrics and lace for this skirt and blouse all came from either garage sales or thrift shops!

The skirt has an attached slip with lace.

Close-up of blouse.

In between some other sewing, I decided to make a couple small quilts out of 1" strips.  One of them is quilted and ready for the binding.  I decided to trim it for binding and accidentally trimmed 3 sides of the unquilted one by mistake before I noticed it was the wrong one.  They measure 13 1/2" x 11 1/2".

Unquieted one.

I was reading some blogs and Shelby Stitcher was blogging about her wonky stars  made from triangles saved in a box.  I also have triangles saved below my sewing table.  Here you can see a large basket containing light strips, some freezer paper scraps and the instructions for my sewing machine (which I discovered has a lot of information in it that I hadn't noticed until this week).  To the right of the large basket is a small bag crammed full of triangles.

Here's a better picture of the triangle bag.  It must have contained a sheet set or something like that at one point, but it is a very sturdy plastic bag.  Occasionally, I will make HSTs or pinwheels out of left-over triangles.  This bag has triangles of all sizes in it just waiting to be used for something.

That's it for this week.