my "blog" related to quilts and other things that interest me.
Well I did it – I brought the Dear Jane quilt to North Little Rock today and delivered it to my daughter Melanie:
you can hardly see her but there she is under her new quilt
I finished one more block last night -
Row 12, Block 12 (L-12)
14 blocks left to make and sew the final two rows together. Then it will be set aside until the fall most likely and then I will get started on the borders. Now if I can just stay motivated to keep to this schedule!!
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Amy’s Creative Side is having another Quilt Festival she is asking people to enter a quilt and she has all kinds of sponsors giving away prizes.
The quilt that really took a lot of work in it for me and that I am proud of accomplishing is my first Dear Jane quilt. Some of you know all about my Dear Jane that I named “Insanity” as I felt I must have been insane to start that quilt. Throughout my blog I have talked about it numerous times. (click on photos to enlarge)
My completed Dear Jane "Insanity"
I started this quilt on my daughter Melanie’s birthday February 23, 2005 so it is only fitting that this quilt is going to her. I hand pieced the whole quilt and hand quilted it. I finished quilting it November 13, 2009 It took me 4 years and 9 months to complete it. Of course I took quite a few breaks and made other quilts during this time. I had to take breaks or I would have truly gone insane! LOL Anyone who is making this quilt knows what I mean.
This quilt has 4,928 pieces in it. It is a charm quilt in that each block uses a different fabric. It took me 645 hours and 30 minutes to make it. Yes I kept a journal as many of us Janiacs do.
My daughter and I with THE QUILT
It resided on my bed for about 5 months and now at the end of this month after finally putting a label and a hanging sleeve on it I will be giving it to my daughter at the end of the month when I see her. She will be hanging it on a wall so her dog will not do any damage to it.
One of the main things I learned about quilting and through this quilt is that Kona Cotton does not work really well with hand piecing small pieces. I never plan to use it again for a quilt like this although I dearly love that fabric — just not with a quilt like this – it has a little stretch to it and also had a problem with raveling edges.
When I finished this quilt I had no intention on ever making another like it but after only 3 weeks I went into withdrawal from my addiction to Dear Jane and started a second one! I am calling this one “Insanity Revisited” as I really and truly must be insane to start a second one. This one is in red and butter cream batiks. It will go to my other daughter one day. I have been hand piecing it also and I am almost done with all the squares and will soon be moving on to the triangle border.
The second quilt looks like this so far:
Sometime down the road if Amy has another festival and I am finished with the top I will feature this one. 11 of the 13 needed rows of blocks is done.
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No news today. I spent part of the day working outside and part of the day reading. I still have part of my book to finish – maybe a quarter of it? I’ve been good though and not spending hours on end just reading 
I need to get another Dear Jane block prepped and ready to work on. One thing I had been working on the last couple of days was putting a label and a wall hanging sleeve on the first Dear Jane “Insanity”. I had finished it you know back in November but never got around to putting the sleeve and label on it. I plan on delivering it to Melanie and Ric soon so really needed to get that done. They plan on hanging it on a wall as they have a dog who believes she is mistress of the house and sleeps on the bed and the couch so they do not want to put it where Patty could sleep on it and possibly damage it without really meaning to – I got the sleeve and label on so now that is finished. I am caught up on labels. I used to do that immediately after finishing a quilt but this past year I have been lazy 
I have been reading a lot of blogs lately and my reader has so many on it it is pitiful. I need to go through it and start culling out the ones that rarely blog and cut it back somewhat. I have never gotten more than 120 on my reader but that is way too many blogs to keep up with!! Especially when we travel and I’m not on the computer so much. Then I tend to run through it and look for the ones I am in the most touch with the authors and the rest I just delete. When we travel I need to try to get that reader down under 50! (hmm I wonder if I can do that – probably not).
Time to get off of here and get a DJ block prepped to work on while Criminal Minds is on tonight!
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I have been pondering what kind of border to make all day for the circles and squares quilt. I have finally come up with a plan for it. I will wait until I get going on it before any pictures. In the meantime while I was thinking I worked on a Dear Jane block for the Insanity Revisited quilt.
This is block 3 from Row 10, it was a very easy block to make. The curves are done with reverse applique.
Another thing I did today was make some soup again – winter weather brings out the soup in me I don’t eat it all that much the rest of the year. This one is made from Butternut Squash.
Classic Butternut Squash Soup
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2/3 cups diced carrots
1/2 cup diced celery
2/3 cup chopped onion
4 cups cubed butternut squash (about 1 medium)
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
4 to 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
Heat oil in a large soup pot. Add the chopped carrot, celery, and onion. Cook until vegetables have begun to soften and onion turns translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add butternut squash and thyme. Stir to combine with vegetables. Stir in the chicken broth and season with the salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until squash and carrots are fork tender, about 30 minutes. Carefully puree in batches in a traditional blender. Make sure to only do small batches at a time or it might splatter somewhat (yes I put too much in the first batch and had a little mess – just a little LOL )
The soup is quite tasty! Just enough pepper – I put in a quarter teaspoon.
Classic Butternut Squash Soup
Our weather forecast does not sound good!! On Thursday we start with rain and the temperatures are supposed to drop. Possibly ice at night or Friday morning. Right now they are saying 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch of ice and then several to five inches of snow. Of course who knows if we will get both. This upcoming storm though will be exactly one year since northern Arkansas had a really bad ice storm last year. Some people were without power for weeks – some of my family included. We had missed the worst of of it but still had some ice one day. Keep your fingers crossed that we don’t have it bad once again. Just to be prepared I am going to have Mike move the generator up to the porch and have gas for it. No since not being prepared, we already have the wood rack full for firewood.
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Photos from Thanksgiving:
Melanie and I with THE QUILT
8 rows of the second Dear Jane quilt "Insanity Revisited" this one will eventualy go to my younger daughter Jessica
My family that I comment on from time to time on my blog - the most important people in the world to me. From left my hubby Mike, Melanie, Ric, Me, Jessica, Shane - in front Jessica & Shane''s kids Ciera and Utah
Ciera and Utah with Max their dog that came along for the family trip
And as if I don't have enough projects in the works - this is a new knitting project. Now that I have the knit stitch down pat I am working on learning how to purl so one side is knit, one side purl. This will be a shawl like thing - I say thing because I wonder if it will be more afhgan size when I am done? I am not following a pattern but just put 100 stitches on the big needles and going from there!
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For now the Dear Jane quilt “Insanity” will reside on my bed. Melanie is going to hang it on a wall after I give it to her so I need to put a hanging sleeve on the back of the quilt still. I am going to make the sleeve in such a way that a bracket can go in the middle to give the weight of the quilt support as it is heavy. For now though the quilt is on my bed and it will remain there for about a year for me to enjoy. I put the Twisted Star quilt that I had on the bed so the back of the quilt which is a purple moda marble is on top, the Insanity is on top of that making the underneath quilt look more like a bed skirt. At night I will simply fold the quilt and lay it over the tall stool I have in the bedroom in the corner of the room so it is out of the way and then when I make the bed in the morning it will go back over it. I still need to design a label for the back of the quilt. I haven’t uploaded the program I use on my new computer but I decided to get a newer version of Print Master Gold anyhow so I will do that soon. I have Print Master 12 and I think it is up to version 17 or 19 now and have newer ideas for it with internet access. I’m sure plenty of new clip art also which I use a lot on my labels.
Dear Jane "Insanity" on my bed
My younger daughter-Jessica will be receiving the second Dear Jane “Insanity Revisited” sometime after that one is finished. I need to sew row 8 on to the blocks and then I will post a new photo of that quilt. While the grandchildren were here examining the quilts which they love to do asking what will be next I showed Ciera the “Little Brown Bird” quilt and told her that I was thinking of making that one – her words “that one will be mine”. (I told her maybe she would get it when she was 21 – she is 7 now – that should give me plenty of time to make it and enjoy it if I decide to do so). Utah spent one evening working on a design for a quilt that he wants me to make – he said it would be the quilt to use while watching tv in their basement family room which is a little chilly in the winter. Designed by Utah and made by Grandma – he specifically said that it had to have scraps of fabric in it from a quilt that I made him last year He had the big pad of drawing paper out, a square quilting ruler and colored pencils – he did a really good job but was only about a 1/4 of the way done with it when they left for home. He took the drawing home with him and said he will finish it and send it to me – I don’t know if he will keep his interest but if he sends it back I will see what I can do with it.
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I have gotten so many e mails and comments on my quilt – I have tried to answer them all but I feel I most likely have missed some. Thanks to all of you for the comments. It is very encouraging to quilters to hear praise from other quilters – especially when I know some of you do this as a job and are quilt instructors and designers. Making the entire Dear Jane by hand takes a lot of time and patience so if you are making one just remember Jane Stickle did not make her quilt in a hurry – she took the entire Civil War period to make it — hang in there and one day you will have a finished quilt. Jane’s quilt was not perfect – she has plenty of crooked pieces and so do I – not all my points meet and neither did hers but as we all say – “it is finished” and that is what counts the most LOL. I did not aim for perfection – I wanted the challenge and boy did I get it!
this corner piece had the most pieces in it - 74 total.
this is the corner piece that Jane Stickle on her original quilt signed and indicated how many pieces were in the total quilt. I will be making a label for the back of my quilt over the next week or so and get my label on the back like I normally do.
These pictures show the quilting a little bit better then the photo from yesterday. These photos also show how the batting shrinks up when you use 100% cotton batting. By washing and drying a quilt in the dryer using cotton batting your quilt will take on the appearance of a antique quilt. I very much wanted that look for this quilt although it is the same batting I use for almost all of my quilts – I just love the “old” look that it gives.
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The journey is over! I am FINISHED with this project that took me 4 years and 9 months to make. Of course I didn’t actually work on it the whole time, I took months off while working on other projects at times. I actually finished piecing it March 15 of 2008 and it sat waiting patiently for me to finish quilting another quilt that was on the frame for almost a year! I put it on my quilting frame and started quilting it on February 23 of this year. The “Insanity” began on February 23 of 2005, I finished it on November 13, 2009. Today I got up the nerve to wash it and throw it in the dryer. I have used 100% cotton batting (quilters dream) . I like the crinkly antique look and the batting did justice to the quilt in my opinion. I did the quilt totally by hand including the binding. The completed work took me 645 hours and 30 minutes from start to finish. Out of that time it took 141 hours and 25 minutes to hand quilt it. So you can see it really takes more time to hand piece this quilt than it does to quilt it!. I believe if I figured right it took me 505 hours and 5 minutes to piece this baby . I tried to keep an accurate total of my time but I’m sure I forgot now and then to write down the time. The quilt has 4,928 pieces in it. I used King Tut variegated cotton thread to quilt.
my Dear Jane "Insanity" click on the photo and it will bring you to a larger size. If you click on the photo again it should bring you in for a close up.
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My box arrived from the Fat Quarter Shop. I am really pleased with all of these pre-cut squares. They will not get worked on for awhile as I need to finish the Dear Jane, Insanity first. I think I am going to make a charm quilt with a bunch of circles on squares – maybe alternate a gray fabric with a white fabric. All of these colors will look good on those backgrounds – the dark ones on white fabric and the light ones on gray fabric. I have a piece of gray put aside that I had not found a project for – I have some white but don’t know if I have enough so I will have to measure when the time comes to start and see what I have or possibly use a combination of whites – that normally works out good.
the box of fabric, a possible pattern and white and gray fabric
a peek inside one of the stacks of 40 squares - 12 stacks with 40 in each
I was going to try to find some fall color to share but every where that I had seen nice color at the other day had fallen to the ground — where there was a pretty tree there was no place to stop and take a photo of it at. I ended up going to the walking trail for a walk today and brought the camera with me to the trail this is at the Bona Dea Trail on the edge of town, it is a bird/animal sanctuary. There was some color but not a lot of it. I took the walk that goes around the back area where the swamp is it is about a mile and a quarter loop. Here are some photos.
the beginning of the trail in the back area
part of the swamp
the little building in the distance is the bird blind if you go inside of it, it overlooks the swamp and you are hiden from the birds and sometimes get lucky and get some good photos - I didn't get any birds but here is a turtle
another part of the trail - a little fall color here
this photo is from the bird blind at 3 this afternoon - it wasn't real sunny today but a nice comfortable day for a walk - around 62 degrees I think.
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I think I will get my Moda Box of Sampler squares tomorrow or the next. I’m looking forward to seeing them! And then of course I will need to figure out how to use them – what design ect. I love charm quilts and this will make one perfectly. I will post a photo when they arrive so you can all see what they look like! (Have you all noticed the price of fabric going up over the last two years! I know it is still more inexpensive here in the states then over seas. I wouldn’t even want to think of paying what you all pay in other countries)
I have gotten 2 sides of the scallops on “Insanity” finished – give me about 2 or 3 more days and I just might be finished with it. I have barely touched any other project other than the Christmas quilt which I have worked on quilting a little. Even though it will be sad in a way to have finished this quilt it will be a relief also!!
It continues to be so nice outside – a little cooler today but still very nice. I sat outside for awhile this morning watching Mike work a little outside before he left for work. I skipped working on the flowers this morning but I was clearing up some of the building supplies. Tomorrow maybe back to a little work on the flower beds or the fall clutter of leaves on the ground! So many leaves. I should take the camera with me tomorrow when I run into town to get my hair cut. I should go take some photos of what is left of the fall color. We do still have some trees with color. We do not have a lot of them left in our yard though.
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