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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