I have been managing to stay in the mood making my Dear Jane blocks lately. I started another last night and finished it today. Moving right along! I compared my time from making my first Dear Jane at 138 blocks to the second Dear Jane quilt and I have found that I am a heck of a lot faster making this one – 60 hours faster right now – I guess that means I really learned a lot making that first Dear Jane quilt. But maybe it also means I should have finished the top by now!! I would have I guess if I could keep my interest just on one quilt at a time.
Row 11 Block 9 "Insanity Revisited"
I got my patterns and instructions printed out for the BOM Star Crazy (located on side bar if you want to see it) but after working just a little while on it I decided to put it aside. My cold is improving each day and a couple more days and it will be gone but I was feeling just a little light headed I guess you could say and couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t want to start cutting wrong so called it a day. I might get to it tomorrow.
Instead I read a book – the book was not all that great and couldn’t hold my interest – it was an author I hadn’t read before and probably won’t again 
This evening I wandered around the yard and took more photos of the plants that are growing.
Yucca flower spikes - these will be opening within a couple weeks. This is in the wild garden area and these yucca plants all grew from roots that we had missed. They are 3 years old and I was amazed to count 15 flower spikes. I will get a photo when the flowers open in a week or two.
This is one of the 10 Scarlet Maple trees that I planted last month. They all began as 1 1/2 foot tall twigs I guess you could say. Three of them are looking like this one, the others are not as good although 5 more are now budding out way down by the surface but not at the top. I will need to do a little pruning I think.
I dug about 10 ferns up from down in the woods last fall and planted them among the hostas here and there. They have grown larger than some I planted in the past. I'm not sure why they appear to be the same variety - only thing I can think of is that my shade in front is more dense than it used to be.
Back to quilting – I picked up the baby quilt earlier and did about 15 minutes of quilting and think maybe I need to get back to it. I will look and see if anything is on the tv tonight.
I don’t have anything new to show in quilting. I am getting another Dear Jane block prepped to sew on sometime today (maybe) and I actually have my “Little Brown Bird” book back out and I am looking through the blocks picking out the next one to prep and maybe take along on our camping trip this week to work on. But maybe I shouldn’t and just bring the baby quilt to work on! Maybe I could actually get done with it if it is the only thing I bring along besides a book or two to read? I really do not need to take much along we will only be gone for a week and we will be busy in the daytime and the sewing will be for in the evening if the bugs drive us inside at night.
I walked around outside for just a little bit this morning and it was the first morning this spring that I was bothered by insects – darn I knew that would happen sooner or later. But I managed to get some photos. My first rose is in full bloom.
I do not know the name of this rose. One time years ago we had some friends of ours that did odd jobs to supplement their income and a job they had was clearing out all plants by someones house. The people decided to open a daycare center and wanted no plants in the play yard area as children put things in their mouths and might get sick. They asked us to come along as they had permission to keep whatever plants they wanted while they cleaned them all out!!! Couldn't believe our good luck. We dug up this rose bush - who knows how old it was. We got so many good plants for free that day and still have a lot of them blooming to this day.
When Mike decided to build a new workshop about 4 years ago the rose bush among other plants were in the way. We decided to dig as many up that we could and replant in other areas. I put the rose bush in another area - or so I thought - we didn't get all of the root system. Mike had rented a backhoe(?) and moved a lot of dirt to an area a distance from the house and it was a bit - a big mound. Didn't think anything about it as it is away from the house and we moved the plants! LOL well there was a lot that we missed. The next spring low and behold we had a new garden on that mound of dirt. A rose bush grew, lilies, daffodils, yucca plants, Queen Ann's Lace, and of course since then trees have taken hold and many weeds. I need to decide what to do with it but each time I finally think about it I know the weather will get too hot to deal with it. This fall (I hope) I want to mark the plants to keep and start getting rid of the weeds and try to clean it up somewhat.
another section of the "wild area". I do not want to loose the wild look to the mound but I want to get the weeds under control so that I can possible plant some more actual plants. The weeds get quite high in the summer and block out the flowers.
the first of my clematis flowers
Now I need to get off of the computer and get busy with something – at least I have the laundry already started and vacuumed already!
I don’t have anything to really blog about today so I thought I would share some pretty blossoms:
The dogwood with the fully mature blossoms much whiter flowers now than they were in the last photo taken
wild violets that grow all over the place here. I did not have any violets here when we first moved here almost 30 years ago now. About 10 years or so ago they washed in I guess and now they grow all over the place. Some people do not like them over taking their yards but I do not mind - our soil is not good and anything that grows = except actually weeds - is usually welcome.
this azalea had been given to me 22 years ago - it was a miniature but I had no place to really keep it in the house. I did not know if it would stay a miniature or not, but after after 6 years outside it took off and now is almost the same size as the other azalea plants that we have. This one has a salmon pink blossom that will be fully open next week I bet.
I mentioned awhile back that I love tulips but here in Arkansas if we do not get a cold enough winter they do not always come back in blossoms in the spring. This winter was colder and longer than normal and I have 5 tulip buds this year - one more red one is a way off to the side and not in this photo. 5 is better than none but I think I originally planted about 20 of them several years ago.
I have the flowers on the baby quilt all appliqued in place. I marked a grid on it off and on today and it is now ready for quilting. I had a wonderful pink and white plaid fabric that was so soft that I thought it would be perfect for the backing. I bought it last year on sale someplace in the world of quilting fabric on line and knew I would eventually use it for something. I will be using pink thread to quilt it.
First of all Happy Easter to everyone. We do not have any children here to do Easter things with but I did put one edible decoration on the table and we are munching off and on – candy doesn’t last long around here so I don’t buy a lot. It briefly got up to 76 degrees then some clouds and wind came in and dropped it 71. Here are some photos of our spring.
Flowers for Easter and some candy! A three tier candy dish and since I took this photo candy has been eaten and it is now a 2 tier dish!
The small red bud tree. This tree grew from seed. We have a larger red bud tree a distance away from this one about half of that tree has died though and doesn't look as well as this small tree does. It started to grow about 4 or 5 years ago.
The small dogwood tree we didn't plant this one either - well I should correct that we did plant this one but we dug it up from the woods when it was about a foot tall. We use to have several dogwood trees in the woods that have since died. We noticed this small one growing beside them and wanted one closer to the house so we dug it up about 10 years ago when it was barely a twig and here it is now.
Awhile back Jackie from Canton Village Quiltworks had a giveaway of two of Karen Griska's book "Quilts from the Selvage Edge" I won one of them!!
Jackie let Karen know who won the books and she autographed the books and sent them out. I like how she autographed mine - coincidence of names - Karen G. to Karen G. how cute is that!
Seeing as I now have a book on how to make quilts from the Selvage Edge - I guess I better start to save my selvages. Here I have three to start with. One day I will have to start going through my fabric to cut off the edges. If anyone wants to donate to the cause if you are not going to use your edges - send them to me!! they need to be about 1 1/2 inches wide.
I have had so many people compliment my quilting recently. I say “thank you, thank you.” Working by hand is very satisfying to me. It goes so much slower by hand than by machine but there you go. Sometime if I get way too many tops piled up I might resort to having some machine quilted but not unless I have to. It is possible sometime down the road I might try to machine quilt a baby quilt just to see if I can do it, but I might not I do not stress over perfect tiny stitches. A lot of hand quilters want to have about 10 or 11 stitches per inch or more!! I have heard of some that do 14 stitches an inch how they do that I do not know – nor do I care to learn how to do that!! I do not even try for that. Normally I get about 7 to 8 stitches per inch I try to have them all the same size but they aren’t always the same, if it is really obvious I will pick the stitches back out and re do, but only if really noticeable. If I try really hard and pay attention to every stitch I take I can get 10 — BUT — it takes too much energy on my part!! I have to watch what I am doing constantly to achieve that and I decided sometime back that I just didn’t care that much. I have over the years become satisfied with what my stitches look like and from the experience it comes easily now.
The stitches up close and personal
More of the same block. Quilting with the smaller hoop to me is more comfortable than the large floor standing frame -- but quilting a big quilt is easier to do on the big floor standing frame. For one thing it gets too darn hot with a big quilt for most of the year. I think that is why I can finished the baby quilts and couch size quilts much faster using the hoop than I do when I have a big quilt on the big frame. It is harder to maneuver on the big frame because you can't turn it this way and that way - you have to twist up your arms and hands sometimes if you are going around curves.
I have been asked do I do a “rocking stitch” – yes I do that is the way I taught myself to do it. Some people do a stabbing stitch but I never have done that – I find the rocking stitch easy to do if you have the quilt loose in the hoop or frame and not too tight – you will get that rocking needle easier that way.
I ordered 10 Scarlet Maple trees awhile back and after a bit of problems receiving them and numerous e mails exchanged I finally got them this week. They are small trees and therefore they were very cheap! Trees grow so fast here and I already have tons of trees so did not matter how quickly they grow. I thought these would look so lovely in the fall that is why I ordered them. Now of course digging through this tough rocky soil is another matter!! I have 3 of them planted so 7 left to do. I could ask Mike to help but he is working on other things – I am not helpless – just not so much in the muscle department my goal is to try to plant one or two a day until I get done – give me a week LOL. Now if they were very big trees Mike would be out there with a back hoe digging the holes!! Seeing as these trees are only 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet with very little in the way of roots I can do it. It makes me use some muscle that I’m not use to using. I am scattering them about the property. So far I have put 2 of them a ways in back of the house on the edge of the woods and one over by the back of the workshop. I am not sure where the rest are going – here and there most likely on the far side of our property.
One of the 10 tiny trees.
what they look like when grown.
Still several more days to sign up for the give away http://karensquilting.com/blog/2010/03/give-away-2/ sign up on that post so you are counted – we have 100 comments so far!
I thought for several days about what to make with the charm squares that Teri sent me the other day. I found a book that had something like what I want in it and I am in the process of changing it a bit. I have discovered that I like my dining area so much better for a design area than the sewing room table (more room) that I have moved by big cutting mat to the table in there and go back and forth between the dining area and the sewing room. I get some added exercise to and don’t get stiff. Here is what I have come up with so far:
the charms - I do not work with pastel colors a lot but there was something about these Moda Aviary squares that I loved when I saw them. The fabric is so soft also - love it.
pulling the design together - laying things out, deciding on size - I have some books out for reference to the design that I like, paper to draw ect. I end up like always though and just start cutting and placing and measuring until I get what I want when I am not going by a particular pattern exactly.
there is a piece of creamy butter fabric in each strip. On that strip will be an applique flower or design, there might be a little embroidery on it also.
I will make four "blocks" this size to make one large block. I am going to do the applique first though before I join 4 blocks together. This one measures 23x25. So when the four are joined they will be about 46 x 50 and then there will be a border of some type around it. I am pretty sure I have enough charm squares to do this. If not and I am a couple short I will be searching through the stash to find a couple pieces which I should be able to do with no trouble.
So I will leave all of this stuff out on the dining room table and work on it for the next 3 days – I hope to do one of these units a day and then start on the applique – but if we do any running around this weekend it might end up on the table for a week This took 2 1/2 hours to do – in other words I spent the whole morning on it – which I normally do not do. Normally I am only sewing for an hour here or there in the day and evening.
I did take a break and went outside for some photos:
spring - don't you just love it - but darn all those little bugs are coming back already!
pretty yellow
hydrangea - I planted these last year from rootings off of my big plant - I rooted 7 plants and they all came back.
clematis
the cool weather plants are planted - peas, carrots, beets, two kinds of lettuce, spinach and radishes - we will be gone half the summer so I am not doing other veggies right now. I am going to spread plastic over the fencing to keep it warm as we are to get some cool nights coming up still. When I cut the grass the first time I will have Mike put the mulcher on and I will put mulch over the weed mat to hold it down and take the rocks up then.
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.
It got up to 54 today the sun is shining and it looks like early spring is in the air. That doesn’t mean we won’t have cold days ahead but at the rate things are growing I know it won’t be far off. I spent the last hour outside cleaning out a flower bed of all the dried up leaves and pine needles that had collected up over winter. I found things growing!
This pink hydrangea that I planted last spring is coming back nicely, see all those leave buds!
I do believe these are hyacinths. I know I have some planted in that general area but I was disappointed in them last year as they didn't have good flowers on them. I will see what they do this year and if not many flowers again I will pull them out and re-plant
Tulip greenery - the problem with tulips is that around here you plant them in December and they are usually pretty the first year and then you get nothing but green after that and rarely flowers. If I remember right I have been told that our summers are too hot and the winters not cold enough for a long enough period - this winter was colder and longer than normal so I wonder if I will have flowers this year?
A little fern, these ferns are natural around here and grow every where it seems. I dug some up from down in the woods over the years and have stuck them in flower beds. They normally stay green all winter. This ground cover stays pretty green also and has purple flowers on it mainly in the early spring and I think again in the fall? I might be mistaken on that and only flowers once - either in the spring or the fall?
And the daffodils are all opening up now - this early variety that is. I have seen them around town and the line of them that we have scattered along the front of our property are all starting to bloom now. I will start to find others around the yard more and more as the warm weather stays with us.
Last night and this morning I worked on drawing the stencil design on the quilt top. I use a blue wash out marking pen that I did a blog post on a couple weeks or more about - "Mark-be-Gone". The top is now ready to quilt and I am just waiting on the batting to arrive. I sewed the backing together yesterday. I did not have a wide enough piece and had to sew several lenghts together. It was almost wide enough but missed by about 8 inches.
I have one more block to make for Row 10 on “Insanity Revisited” and then it will be time to sew that row on to the others. Then I will take a break from it once again and work on the March assignment for the “Star Crazy” quilt. I got all that printed out yesterday. I think I have pretty much decided that the “Little Brown Bird” quilt and the “Traditional Red and Green Applique” – each of which have only one block made will stay put aside for awhile while I get these smaller quilts quilted. Plenty of time to work on them later. It is more important to me to get caught up on quilt tops that need quilting. I don’t like having so many things waiting in line not finished. This time will give me time to put more thought into the “Little Brown Bird” I have decided there are many blocks in this quilt that I would rather not make and I am looking for blocks to substitute with. I have found several “lacy” type of blocks to reverse applique and entwine with flowers like the one block I already completed. I will most likely come up with a new name for the quilt because at this rate I don’t even know if there will be a bird in it!!
EDITED: at 9:17PM Odette from Chile left me a comment. I follow her blog although she hasn’t been an active blogger we exchange e mail now and then. The google translator doesn’t always do a good job but for any of you who occasionally go to her blog from mine I am happy to report that she and her family came through the earthquake well. I think she is a bit north of where the damage was and close to the border of Peru. I had e mailed her after the quake and was happy to hear from her, I had wondered of course if she was ok.
First I will explain the “spring is coming” comment on the top. I know a lot of you are under snow and getting more as I write – I’m talking about all of you out east – I know you are in the midst of a strong winter storm I imagine others of you in the northern areas are too. But here – in north central Arkansas look what I discovered today when I went to get the mail out of the mailbox! I think the groundhog of the south (located in Georgia) is right – spring is in the air (even if it feels like winter at times )
the earliest variety of our daffodil bulbs are budding out. This always happens in February it seems, sometimes we have them popping open with snow around them. You always know that spring is really on its way when we see these.
And another clump - we still have a little bit of last weeks snow on the ground in places in the shade. I would not be surprised though to see a little more snow come our way before spring is actually here though.
I told you all I was going to be working on the border of my circles and four patch quilt which I am now naming “Going in Circles” I think it is appropriate. I have been taking some photos as I go along with it to show how I do it. I do not follow any particular rules this is just design as I go.
The first most important step in my opinion is protect your work surface especially if this is your new dining table! I have a large cutting mat 30 x 36 and I use that for the protection. The table is being protected from any glue leaking through.
I start in a corner so that is what I lay in place first.
The supplies - the circles, the nine patches, vines, glue, scissors, and a photo of the border that I am using for inspiration.
I forgot to take a photo of my first corner as I was doing it so this is a photo of the second corner - put your corner segments in place first - one corner at a time is best but you can do all corner first then go to the sides, up to you. These are glue basted in place.
put glue dots on circles as you are ready for them. I put about 2 feet of the vine down first with glue dots on the back, press them in place with your fingers, curve them as you desire. Then I put a circle on each side of the vine, I wasn't going to measure but then I decided I needed to as some were to far apart (they peel up well if the glue is still damp), I am putting the circles about 3 1/2 inches apart on each side of the vine.
getting ready to lay out more of the vine - the vine is all in one piece on each side of the quilt border.
When I got about 2 to 3 feet from the end of the border I laid the next corner pieces in place and glue basted them down. This is so I know where I want my vine to meander and end. Then I cut the vine to the right length ( I will trim a little more off when I get it all basted in place. I glue baste this portion of the vine in place and tuck the end under the 9 patch. The 9 patches also will be needle turned appliqued in place. Using the glue is an easy way to baste also if you need to make adjustments you can gently tug a piece up and reposition as you are working.
One side of the border is done and the second is almost done. Enough done so I can take this photo so you can see what it will look like. Now back to making more circles - I thought I had plenty! LOL I ran out before I finished the second side - talk about not judging correctly!! I had at first done some circles in two different sizes but the larger size was too big I felt so I am going to cut those smaller to begin with and use them to make more of the smaller size circles. That will let me finish the second side of the border but then I will be back to making more circles. Maybe I will get this done late tomorrow or Monday instead of today!
This sure adds a colorful finish to the borders doesn’t it!
