As if I really need another quilt pattern!! LOL I saw a beautiful quilt on someones blog the other day and I tracked it down to “The Ozark Piecemakers Quilt Guild” in Springfield Missouri. (I have sent them a note but haven’t heard back). They have the most beautiful quilt for an opportunity quilt for their 2010 quilt show in September. If you want to buy tickets for a chance at it go to this link. Go to the sidebar on that page and go to OPQG Quilt Show and it will lead you to how to buy tickets. Here is a photo of the quilt — and does anyone know the name of the quilt pattern? – is there a book or pattern for it. Please let me know if you know where the patterns can be purchased. I of course want to put this on my “one day” list. I will send for tickets – but doubt I will win and will need to make one for myself so help if you know the pattern let me know. It looks like Hawaiian quilting doesn’t it – what do y’all think? Isn’t it just gorgeous!
2010 Donation quilt for the Piecemakers Quilt Guild in Springfield Missouri. This has got to be one of the most beautiful I have seen in awhile. If anyone knows where I can buy the pattern please let me know.
Today when I met Julie for sewing I got done with one Dear Jane block and got started on a second one which I finished after I got home. We had a good visit got caught up and had pizza delivered for lunch! Good cookies afterward that she had made. Today’s Dear Jane “Insanity Revisited” blocks:
Block #3 of Row 11 (rowK) yes it looks a little crooked - it will look straight once it is joined in the row and quilted 
Block #4 Row 11 (K)
When I got home today my box of two quilters dream batting were waiting for me!! yeah I can finally get that quilt pin basted and started tomorrow.
I am still waiting for my batting to arrive and trying to be patient so I am busily working on my little blocks for the “Insanity Revisited” last night and this morning I got this checkerboard block finished.
This is my preparation work. Kind of like a paint by number.
here are rows of little blocks sewed together. Then the strips are sewed together and the border in place.
The finish! 40 pieces in this 5 inch block (4 1/2 when finished in quilt). I do not know how fast this block can be made by machine. This one including the preparation work took me about 2 1/2 hours to make. Normally the blocks depending on how many pieces and level of difficulty take anywhere from about 40 minutes to 3 hours. I just noticed a couple threads sticking to the block - sorry I would have taken a better photo if I had noticed it.
Some of the scraps that are going into my March Star Crazy BOM blocks. I still need to go through my scraps to find more bits and pieces. I have some cut out and I'm sure tomorrow or the next day I will get to work.
This was yesterdays weather! The little boy has gotten out of his winter gear and into a tee-shirt - 72 degrees for a high yesterday. Today was cooler it only got up to 68 here and that was a very short while. Still all in all a very nice day although thunderstorms are going through part of the state, might miss us though.
Tomorrow I am going to be sewing at my friend Julie’s for part of the day. She is on the last blocks of row 10 for her Dear Jane. She is catching up to me rapidly!! She started to hand piece her Dear Jane like I do but then decided that she was never going to finish it if she did that so by row 5 or 6 I think it was she started to machine piece instead. We used to meet once a week but we have gotten out of the habit over the past year and now only meet about once a month. I need to look over my things and see what to bring to show her – we tend to have a little show and tell of quilting things even though it is not a big group meeting LOL -We quilters always tend to show off our things don’t we whether it is quilts, fabric or books and pattern. I will be working on another Dear Jane block or two so maybe more blocks to post tomorrow.
Yesterday seeing as I am still waiting patiently (almost) for my batting to arrive I worked up another little Dear Jane block for “Insanity Revisited”. I will get another one prepped today. After running in to the problem of two separate companies out of the batting I use and having to wait for them to send it I decided when I go to Paducah in April to make sure to stock up on several sizes of batting and bring them home and store them under the quilting frame. The packages will be out of my way and there when I need them. I love Quilters Dream 100% cotton batting – it is the only kind I use – I have experimented with numerous brands and just find I like that one the most.
The beginning of Row K (#11) this is block number 1.
Yesterday brought a visit from our daughter Melanie and her husband Ric. This was a visit that had not been planned far in advance but a delight. Melanie and I took a nice walk at the trails while her husband was visiting his mother – who luckily lives only 2 miles away from us which makes visiting easy for them – then we made supper and Ric came over to visit for awhile and eat then they went back to his mom’s house to visit there too. With Melanie’s hours at work not being very flexible we appreciate a visit when they can squeeze us in 
I don’t know how it works for most people but we have found it is easy for them to make a visit to both sides of the family easily because of how close we live to his mom.
It rained last night – we had not had much rain lately so seeing as it was not sever storms and it was at night it was welcome. My little garden plot is ready for planting.
My little plot next to the wood pile. There is a reason for this. I figured because I wanted to plant early - salad type of veggies that grow good at this time of year - but anyway because it is early I want to be able to protect from cold weather. So the plastic over the wood will be pulled over the garden instead and held down and the heat can stay in the area by the plants! Instant green house I still need to get some chicken wire to put a small fence around it too keep out the rabbits. Right now I plan on planted two kinds of lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, green peas and beets (not a salad veggies but I like them) all of these should be ready within one to two and half months which works out well seeing as we will be gone for a good chunk of summer. By putting plastic over it part of the time it should encourage them to grow faster (I hope). I would have liked to have tomato plants too but I don't feel I would have enough time to use them all and I hate to waste them.
a little wild area of plants. The little green that doesn't have flowers on it yet are lily's
The big tree in the center of the yard always gets these reddish buds all over it before the leaves come. They look pretty but sure do make a mess in another two weeks or so when they fall off the tree and the leaves grow. I have to blow them all off of the porch and the deck then, but they are pretty. The picture is not as clear as I hoped. In fact a lot of the photos I took this morning did not turn out and were out of focus. I'm still working on that.
I finished sewing the 10th row onto the body of the quilt and it is looking good I think! There are over 2,000 pieces in it at this point and around 250 hours of hand piecing I think – I have it written down. This second Dear Jane is actually being done faster than the first one was – I checked in my journal to see how long it had taken me on the first one at the end of 10 rows and it was about 50 hours longer — guess I am used to dealing with this bitty pieces.
Me with 10 rows of Dear Jane, "Insanity Revisited"
I think I mentioned to you all that I am a scrap quilter, well even though I have plenty of fabric for this quilt I can’t stop myself from saving my scraps. You see from the photo that some of the pieces are smaller than a quarter! I tend to save scraps and use them up for the tiny pieces as you will see from these photos.
Some of the pieces in this quilt are more the size of a dime than a quarter - but a quarter was what was handy.
a pile of scraps leftover that I couldn't use for this 1st block on row 11 - they were not needed or too small 
the scraps I did use plus a larger piece that was already cut and left over from previous blocks.
So as you can see if you save small pieces from your leftovers when you are making Dear Jane it is very likely that you can use them up, especially if you are doing a two color Dear Jane like this one is.
It was a wonderful day outside today – it got up to a big 68 degrees!!! I hadn’t planned on doing a garden this summer because we will be gone for part of it but then I thought well maybe a little bit that could be ready by the end of June? Mike tilled up a small piece of land for me down by the wood pile that is in the sun all the time. I need to rake it out a little this week and get it ready. Right now I have some seeds for carrots, beets, and sweet peas. I might get some leaf lettuce and radishes too. Maybe a tomato plant if it is really big and has blossoms on it already – not sure on that. We might be getting some rain this week, so my gardening plans might have to wait until next week if it gets muddy.
I continued to work on “Insanity Revisited” last night and then again today and I managed to get two more blocks done. One more block needed for row 10 and that row will be ready to attach to the others!
Block 11, Row 10 - another with ovals - this one was easier though!
Row 10 block 12. I am not aiming for perfection, little mistakes are seen throughout this quilt. I just want to finish it and I do not take things apart and fix if I notice something is not quite right unless it is really bad! A little bit of lint here and there - the whites spots will brush off. Also some of those specks might be from the glue stick - I glue basted the handle down before I appliqued it.
I have settled on this stencil for the 2 inch wide sashing. There are two designs on this stencil as you can see - I will be using the lower one for the 2 inch white sashing and I might use the other one for the black outer border. I am not sure yet. For the inside of the blocks I am thinking more of a geometric shape. I had thought a daisy but because of all the colors in this quilt it could be for a boy or girl and seeing as I do not have any plans right now for it I thought it would be better to have it for an either or. The ruler on the orange block is one that I am fooling around with to come up with a geometric shape - maybe a square in a square on point ending as a 8 point star maybe?
Several people asked where did I find this pattern “So Charming”. Here is the link to the pattern. The Twiddle Tail Store. Go to the bottom of the page and you will see the pattern there. This store is from Anina and her blog is here. There are several more patterns in her store that I would like — but I’m waiting for a little while for any shopping as you all know until Paducah quilt show is over
At least I will be back to these little blocks for awhile. I am waiting for some batting to arrive and when it does I will set about quilting another small quilt. This quilt is one that I did back when we were traveling in September to Colorado and all the wonderful mountains out there. I finished it when I was visiting our daughter at the end of September. It is all hand pieced and will be hand quilted whenever I get my batting.
"So Charming" I'm not sure how I will quilt it most likely a "daisy" type of flower in the centers of the bright blocks or a geometric design and then wavy lines or something like that in the white sashing areas. The white with black dots is the backing. I think I might use black thread on the white areas and white thread on the black areas. I'm not sure what on the color areas.
Row J (10) block 10 - let me tell you it is not fun trying to needle turn all these little ovals in place but I did it! I started yesterday and finished it watching the evening news. I this little block took close to 4 hours to do, one of the longer times. I still need to rub the white chalk lines off of the red.
I’m not sure how long I will need to wait for my batting. I had order two battings – twin size from a company I had not ordered from before. About two days later I got an e mail from them telling me they didn’t have the twin size but if I wanted queen size they could send that – if I didn’t want queen size did I want to wait until they ordered more. I sent back an e mail asking them how long I would need to wait for them to order it and for it to get to me – I never heard back from them!! Two days later I sent them another e mail and told them to cancel the order seeing as they had not responded to my question I thought they might not be a company I wanted to order from. I still have not heard from them – strange way to do business.
So I ordered from a company I have ordered from other times with good luck instead. But they are in New York – where they had that big snow storm – I wonder if my order will be delayed. I might send them an e mail and find out – but while I wait for it to arrive I will work on my little blocks and the quilting on the Christmas Quilt.
Continue reading about Back to “Insanity Revisited” – Dear Jane
Today it rained all day – so what do most quilters do on a rainy day? They tend to stay in and sew like me if they are able to. I did run out to the fitness center and then it was back home to fabric and a book
I made my vines today for the border of the quilt. I cut the bias strips yesterday and today I prepared that long, long piece of bias that I had sewed together yesterday – all 420 inches of it!! I don’t know what method most of you use but here are the steps I use once it is sewn together. I forgot to take photos yesterday of me cutting the strips and sewing them. To make my bias strips into vines or stems I use the product from Clover – it comes in various sizes. ( I have not ordered from this link given but I linked it to the Clover site) There is a fusible tape that you can use with this tool also and iron your stems and vines down. Sometimes I use it other times I don’t. There has been a time or two when I could see the fusible through the fabric and it didn’t look good. Other times it doesn’t seem to stay ironed on. Most of the time in the last couple years that I have used it I just press it and then when I put it on my quilt top I use the Roxanne Glue Bast It to hold it in place until I stitch it down. In this case I will continue to do my hand stitching as so much of this top already has hand stitching in it (the circles) and also because for me it will be neater!!
this is my bias stem/vine maker. It is by Clover and this one is 1/4 inch wide.
I lightly spray with starch (in BACK of the maker - don't spray the area that has already been pressed or it will open back up), give it a second or two to dry slightly and then start pressing the seams down with the iron as you pull/push the maker the opposite direction. I constantly move the iron to keep up with it to press the seams under. I don't even lift the iron up but a kind of push the maker with the iron as I press.
I cut a piece of cardboard off of things in the kitchen cupboard for winding the vines to keep them neat - in this case a large box of microwave popcorn came into use.
400 inches of bias piled up on the floor
420 inches of vines neatly waiting for me to glue baste in place on the border - maybe tomorrow?
Tonight I have gotten some little 9 patch blocks ready and have some more to make. After that it is more circles – I’m making 2 different sizes from scraps and they will go on the sides of the quilt border most likely on both sides intermittent along the vines.
Yesterday I just about completed 2 Dear Jane blocks for the “Insanity Revisited” quilt, I finished one up this morning. The two done:
Block number 8 from row 10
Block number 9 from Row 10. It seems that at times on this quilt the original maker Jane Stickle must have enjoyed making certain kinds of pieces in this case oval shapes, these two and the next two have them. They are a pain to make in my opinion!
Now I am back to making the patchwork blocks for the border until CSI comes on at 8 – how do you all like CSI lately – I haven’t enjoyed it as much the last two seasons now that they replaced the Grissom character with Lawrence Fishburns character – he just doesn’t seem to go with the other cast members as well I think and also not the same since they killed off Warrick last year, or was that two years ago? Too many changes aren’t good for a show at times!! In my opinion
I have decided on my border – thank you all for your opinions. I am going to put the vines on the border like the one I showed you on the baby quilt. I will put nine patches in the corners also in pretty much the same arrangement and then on the sides of the borders I will put circles here and then instead of the patches shown in the baby quilt. I was busy today cutting bias strips to make the vines but that is all the further I got with it today.
Someone asked in the comments on yesterday’s post how I plan to quilt this quilt — by hand of course! I do not quilt any other way. I think she mainly wondered because of all the seams. For me when hand quilting I go with the design of the quilt. I would not try to do anything fancy – wreaths or what not on the main part of the quilt because of all the seams. Around the circles I will quilt circles (outline) and on the squares I will have a diagonal line run through them. Yes the seams make it a little harder but there will just be a couple bigger stitches there. This is for me not a show or whatever, the size of the stitches do not matter to me, consistency does. On the border I will do outline stitch around the vines, circles and blocks and then the diagonal lines from the squares will run through to the border – that is what I am thinking right now. Another questions was why did I have a baby quilt — I’m not sure why that question was asked – don’t all quilters make baby quilts? This particular baby quilt was given to one of nephews on the birth of their baby about 4 years ago, I take pictures of most of my quilts and have a computer file to pull photos from. I have made a lot of baby quilts over the years. I used to try to make them for all the babies in the family but I come from a very, very large family and can no longer keep up with them. I still make baby quilts now and then, sometimes for charity and sometimes to sell.
I spent part of the day finishing a book I was reading so I could get my books back to the library before they were over due. Of course seeing as I was at the library I checked 3 more out. I also made a cake earlier – Mike’s birthday today – we will go out for supper later – steak for him – I don’t make a good steak and I don’t care who knows it steak is not a favorite of mine as I know it is for so many people, maybe that is why I don’t make one well?
We actually get a little more snow I hear over the next two days! I am amazed – this winter seems to be drawing out longer than normal for us. The temperatures are not bad though and what we have on the ground is melting.
I have a book I want to share with you all. I’m giving it a great review. I wonder how many of you quilters have this handy reference? This is a great little book. I picked it up at a quilt shop on one of our travels someplace – the sticker on the book says “Hearthside Quilt Shoppe”. We have stopped at plenty of quilt shops when we travel, it could have been anywhere! The book is by Peggy Scholley and it has a ton of information stuck into 30 pages. The book: “The Quilters Pocket Reference” I do not know if Peggy has a website to order the book from, the link I gave goes to Amazon. Com
The Quilter's Pocket Reference by Peggy Scholley
An example of the inside pages. This book gives you information and measurements. How big do you need to cut a piece of fabric to make a 3 inch half square triangle block? The book tells you. Run your finger down the column of numbers and you will find what you need. Anything from figuring out how much the fabric will cost to make you quilt to hst's and borders, how to cut and measure for quilt backs, calculate yardage for squares. You name it the little book has it. I really think it is one of the handiest books on my shelf - in fact I don't even keep it on my book shelf among the other books I have it on the shelf right above my cutting table where I can access it easily and always know where it is!
This is a very handy book and I recommend it to all quilters – especially if you are poor at math like I am
One more Insanity Revisited block is finished, actually I almost finished two last night but the one not shown I have several pieces to applique on to it and will show it another day.
Block # 7 Row 10 "Insanity Revisited"
Our snow is starting to melt already – we got up to 35 degrees today and the rest of the week should be in the 40’s – this snow will not last long!! Because I spent just about 3 whole days in the house and barely got outside I did get some sewing done, and a bit of tv watched! Too much, I don’t like to sit still for so long and can only wander back and forth in the house so much. I spent a lot of time on my applique square for the Red & Green Traditional quilt. Even though I washed my reds and greens 3 times I can now see I will have to pre-treat as well. I finished the block and washed it this evening as I had glue basted and I like to wash the glue out. I had a little bit of bleeding!!! Not a lot and it isn’t real noticeable. I have some Retayne and I will try treating it tomorrow and see if that little bit will come out. I am also going to order a new bottle as I am almost out – I might just order two while I am at it as I can see that even though I washed all of these reds and greens numerous times I might just as well pre-treat them all as well.
Block one of the Red and Green Quilt. In this photo the bleeding does not show up well and my husband couldn't spot it without me pointing it out to him so it is not real noticeable - probably just to quilters that are looking for that kind of thing. All of the rosebuds are from the same fabric, it was a really great mottled red that had some black in it as well to almost shades of pink, great for buds so they are not all the same. The really dark ones in the photo though are a little darker than they actually are, they appear darker here and I couldn't lighten the photo up properly.
Block 5 from Row 10 Dear Jane, Insanity Revisited. The first time I made this quilt I pieced this block as shown in the book, this time I appliqued it for something different - I think it was actually easier to piece.
Tomorrow I am getting out of the house for sure – I can’t stand being in the house all the time I go crazy.
Some people have commented that part of this quilt looks familiar but not quite like one they saw someplace. I posted a post last month that I got a pattern from Bunny Tales, the pattern is called Yo-Yo’ville but I kind of changed it up and wonder why I bought the pattern to begin with! As you can see at the link I kept the body of the quilt kind of the same. The change I made in it is that they have all the color squares on a diagonal setting where as I kind of zig-zagged them around a bit. After I got the pattern I decided that the house border was not “me” that is why I am thinking of appliqueing circles on the border. The house border is cute, don’t take me wrong it is just not the type of applique I do – I don’t do “cute” very well no insult to the designer intended as we all have our own taste of course.
I have the border sewed on to the body of the quilt. Now I will take a break from it and then decide if I am going to applique circles on it – just plain scattered. Here is what it looks like now. It is 100 x 100 inches and I have no space to lay it out completely on the floor without moving furniture even more than I did! So just use your imagination to picture it completely flat!
Tried to get most of it flat for the photo, but just not enough room.
a close up of one of the corners so you can see the strips in the border better. The aqua strip is from the Dutch Treat quilt -- I had a lot of left over fabric from that one and it will be included in a few quilts down the road I think The yellow is a Michael Miller Fairy Frost fabric - I have a red and an orange in the same line but when lined up together I didn't like them for it.
I tried to get a better photo of it laying on the bed but I don't think it really helps any. The circles that are on the main part of the quilt are about 1 1/2 inches I think -- the ones on the border if I do them will be about 2 to 3 to maybe even 4 inches - maybe a combination of both sizes and just scattered around. Or I could just leave it and do a nice quilted border or something like that? I will decide later. Like I say I need a break from it and will be working on other projects for a week or two I think.
Block 4 Row 10 Insanity Revisited. Made this easy block this morning.
We are still being warned of a possible ice storm for Thursday late in the day and snow on Friday. Each day they change the outlook a little bit. Yesterday’s report sounded bad so this morning we moved the motorhome to in between the house and the work shop where it is protected from trees. Where it is normally parked is by some pine trees – if we get ice we could have broken branches and do not want to chance it. Luckily the area Mike had to drive through was dry enough and he didn’t sink in to any mud — we have had a lot of rain in recent weeks and it is very muddy in places. We are ready with firewood and a generator in case we loose power – the refrigerator is full (well be plugged into the generator if needed) so I am ready – now lets keep our fingers crossed that it passes us by!!
