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.
It rained off and on all day today, a nice soaking in kind of rain in my area – other areas had downpours. I’m glad we had the better kind. Also and this is so unusual for August our high temperature happened about an hour ago – 70 degrees!! 
normally at this time of evening it is still in the mid 80’s as it was it was 66 for most of the day. That is so nice — but crazy this is August after all.
Between last night and today I got 4 more “Insanity” blocks quilted and I am partly 
done working on a “Insanity Revisited” block but it isn’t finished so I didn’t take a photo of that one. This one on the left are blocks 4 and 5 and the ones on the right are 6 and 7. Half way done with this row! it is moving right along now that I am back to work on it.
I have been really looking over the patterns and the book for the Little Brown Bird as I mentioned the other day and though I like it I wonder if it isn’t too much? If you know 
what I mean – it is so full of designs. I am wondering what it would be like if instead of the blocks that have 4 designs in them if I enlarge the pattern to have just 1 design in each of those areas and just pick and choose which ones I use? It is so fancy the way it is!! I would like the challenge though. I know I saw some place someone had made this quilt but changed the design up a little in that she had left some of the blocks out also – does anyone know a link to it? I can’t find it. I was sure I had bookmarked it. I will keep looking but if anyone has seen this quilt designed just a little differently let me know. I would like to see several versions if I can before I get started on it (not sure when that will be). I’m pretty sure the picture I saw was on someone’s blog.
I had been pretty much at work all day finishing up the painting in the quilting/computer room. Finally at about 6 this evening (Mike is working late so I didn’t cook) I started to move things back into the room and try to organize! There are 
still a bit of things on the kitchen table waiting for me to go through. I did get “Insanity” back on the quilting frame – just finished doing that a little while ago.
Here is what it is looking like right now. This is the side that has my cutting table and the sew ezi table for my machine. I put my seven boxes of scrap fabric up high and the wire containers of fat quarters or less are now on the single shelf up high. I use to have bolts and folded fabric up there but when I would get things down they tended to fall. I think the wire containers will go up and down easier. As you can 
see the room isn’t changed that much other than the fact that the paint is fresh and my ceiling isn’t sagging!
This is the side for the quilting frame. I have made use of the under quilt area for book shelf and a basket of batting. Also my small hoops are under there also. My 
sewing machine travel case on wheels is under it also. Small room! I have to make use of every inch. The shelf above the quilting frame is holding the bolts of fabric and folded pieces. The bottom shelf has the bolt of fabric and colors that I got when we were in Pennsylvania for the “Little Brown Bird” yes I still intend to make it – when – I’m not sure, but I am collecting up the fabric needed to make it. The shelves still have room for me to put more things on them. I have photos in frames that I need to decide where to put and which ones, I had too many and some of them will go in the photo albums.
And here is Dear Jane “Insanity” back on the quilting frame. I have not worked on it for 11 days and really need to get 
back to work! I was moving along really well there for awhile and need to do a little before we leave for our three week trip to Colorado.
I am sometimes amazed at how poorly things are made now. I got this iron about 2 years ago – maybe? it might be more like one year. I was folding up the cord preparing to put it back on the shelf and the plug in fell off! Mike says he can fix it so it is set aside for him to do so.
I am going to try to keep the room organized and even though I still have some things to put away and the two drawers to clean out I think I will actually have more room than I had!
I’m glad everyone has enjoyed looking at the links to the free patterns that I posted for the last two days. I can’t take the credit for finding them. The list volunteer from the “quiltersbee” yahoo mailing group finds things all the time. I have been on this yahoo group for about 8 years or more! It is an on-line quilting group and Diana finds information constantly that she lets everyone know about.
The Old Country Store in Intercourse, PA is one of my all time favorites. I first went to that store in 1988 when we went on a family trip and camped near by. I had been quilting a little before that but that is around the time I really got interested in it. This was I believe the 4th time we have been here and I enjoyed it just as much as I always have. Of course I found some good buys. The old Country Store is now selling some items on line – for the fabric this is their fabric bundles of fat quarters. They are not sold as inexpensive as when you buy by the bolt but the prices are not bad. If you go to the link above and then go to the on-line store you will see what they have. I can tell you that the photo’s they show are very close to the true colors of the fabric as what you see pictured is what they have in the store and I looked at all of them.
Besides the store mentioned above we also found “Zooks Dry Goods” that I had been told about. Zooks doesn’t have a web page but if you are in the area and looking for it – it is across the street and down a block from the Country Store.
I had items in mind that I wanted to find. I mentioned awhile back that I want to make the applique quilt called “Little Brown Bird”. The Old Country Store did not have the amount of yardage that I needed for the background fabric – 8 yards, but I did find it at Zooks. It is a light ivory of the moda marble line and would you believe they sell it for $5.99 a yard! On the page with this link it sells for $8.25 a yard. It is actually an ivory but the marbled part is kind of light beige so you can see some texture. I got the 9 yards on the bolt that they had. I saved at least $35 on it when you add in shipping and handling if I had to order it and have it sent to me.
Besides the partial bolt of the moda marble ivory I also got 4 – 8 packs of fat quarters in graduated colors in the moda marble line for all the flowers and leaves and things that go in that quilt. I will also pull fabric from my stash for these and possibly still have to find bits and pieces to make the baskets with and other odds and ends in this quilt.
I got a bar of homemade soap that is supposed to make your hands soft as can be at the Old Country Store and a couple notions. Not a bad haul for one day!! I totally refrained myself from buying books and patterns of which I have plenty and really, really do not need any more ideas!!
Here is a photo of my loot — Mike has not had time to go through all the photo’s taken today or the ones from Gettysburg. Hopefully I can get some of them up tomorrow or the next day. The lighting for this photo was a little off and the fabric on the bolt shows up white here, it really does have a bit more color in it than that! – it is laying on the bed in the camper on my log cabin quilt that I bring with us. It has pine trees in the center – one I designed myself.
The name of the block for the Baltimore Album Christmas quilt that I am working on now is called Christmas Delight. Everything is glue basted in place, all the tiny circles made and this time I am trying something that I use when making my Dear Jane blocks for the applique. I trace around each freezer paper template with a white chalk pencil and those are my stitching lines. I thought I would try it on this block and see if it makes it any neater. I’m sure some of the chalk will wear off before I am done, but will give it a shot. These blocks for this quilt will measure 16 1/2 inches finished size. A nice size to work with I think.
A gorgeous applique quilt that I am thinking of making is called “Little Brown Bird” this is considered a applique 
masterpiece. Maybe way beyond my capablities? I’m not sure. Still in the thinking on it phase. I have ordered the book and will look at it closely and see if I will attempt it. If I do I won’t start it until next year in order to have time to finish up a few things first. This quilt will take a lot of time if I try it and other than Dear Jane it might be the only two projects I would be working on – I simply would not have time for anything else!!. I don’t know why but these kinds of quilts I have always loved but never really thought I would try. This one is done by Linda Simmons and the link is to her photo and information. It is a beautiful quilt and took her 3 1/2 years to make. Look at that border – wow she took home a first place ribbon with this masterpiece.
