Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 10 F12, G3, G12, I5

Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 9, C2, H2, H8, M2

With these four Dear Jane quilt block done it makes a total of blocks 29 of the centre113 squares, which is 25% of the main quilt.  As you may have guessed these statistics are a great source of motivation to me!  The blocks which have been drawn are
 
F12 - Starburst
G3 - Four Leaf Clover
G12 - Gloriae
I5 - Maria's Majesty

You may be pleased to know (I know that I am) that this quilt will not be entirely orange fabrics as this draw will be in RED.  Looking at the blocks they look a bit tricky ...

Open European Quilt Championship - Maastricht 2015



Open European Quilt Championship (OEQC) - Maastricht 2015

You may have noticed that I was a bit quiet last week - I was on a quilting adventure. 


Belgian cake shop

We took a trip across the channel to France, Belgium and the Netherlands, indulging in fine food and wine, with a diversion to the 2015 OEQC quilt show at Maastricht.

Quilt display by Blanche Vandebroek, Belgium

Obviously there were plenty fabric shopping opportunities and plenty of quilts to look at.  There was a lovely display of quilts by Blanche Vandebroek (Belgium). Even with a mixture of French, German, Flemish, Dutch and English languages being spoken, we all seemed to share the common language of quilts.

Lynn Blevens - Longarm quilting tutor

I also took part in a longarm quilting workshop with Lynn Blevens from the USA, which was amazing, especially when Maastricht TV unexpectedly came into film us. 

Dear Jane quilt blocks, English Paper Piecing

And what about Dear Jane? Time spent travelling has allowed me to keep up my hand sewing and I gathered quite a little pile of blocks (10 to be exact - Catherine).

Dear Jane Quilt - Block H8 Eaton's Crossroad

Dear Jane Quilt - Block H8 Eaton's Crossroad

Here is the final block of this orange draw, H8 Eaton's Crossroads. I looked up Eaton's Crossroads on the internet and it is a real place in the state of Tennessee.  My block doesn't really represent the street map view I found.  Then it made me curious to look up where Tennessee is located in the USA and I was reminded of its music history .. the Dear Jane quilt is a true learning journey.


Dear Jane Quilt - Block H8 Eaton's Crossroad

You will get an insight from this picture of how I approached this block.  I English paper pieced the centre circle cross and then appliqued it on, removing the paper as I went.  I am starting to build up quite a stash of Dear Jane blocks which makes me eager to get more done.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing, Applique
Pieces: 36

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M2 Duff's Bluff

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M2 Duff's Bluff

Sometimes a block is so easy that I forget that I have even done it.  This was one of them.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 21

Colourwave Workshop with Jan Hassard

Colourwave Quilt with Jan Hassard

I have been on a quilting workshop today with Bristol quilter, Jan Hassard, at Busy Bees Patchwork in Newport.  Here you can see the blocks I completed today pinned to my design wall.  It was a great day where we got an insight into how Jan works her magic with colour, but as always, too short and you wish you could spend the next 48 hours completing the project.

Jan sent instructions beforehand, so that we could do most of our fabric cutting beforehand, which was great, as it gave us more time during the day to actually focus on the design and machine stitch some strips together.  I am using batiks for this project, largely from the generous bundle I won from The Objects of Design, over a year ago.

Along with this, my head is full of ideas of projects I want to do.  Dear Jane is keeping me quiet, but I need to catch up with my Miniature Block of the Month, I am making a quilt for our camper van, and I have quilts to quilt.  Also, I am finding it hard to settle as I am quite sure Bonnie Hunter is due to release details of her 2015 Mystery Quilt soon ....

Dear Jane Quilt - Block C2 Streak of Lightning

Dear Jane Quilt - Block C2 Streak of Lightning

I should have saved this post for Halloween as C2 Streak of Lightning had some of those 'scary' diamond shapes in it.  In my quilting life I have learnt the hard way never to take diamond shaped pieces for granted - you need to keep a very close eye on them.  I think I nailed it on this one.

Some of the 'eagle eyed' out there ( yes, I know who you are ...) have spotted that I am adding my own special touches to the blocks, especially noting the similarity to this and the last block.  It works for me ... how else would you know it was mine? ;)

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 19

Dear Jane Quilt - Block H2 Jacob Anthony

Dear Jane Quilt - Block H2 Jacob Anthony

The base of this block is all English Paper pieced, but the two triangles on the corners are appliqued.  It took me 1.5 hours to sew those two on last night.  It didn't help that I forgot to take the paper out the first time around.  It appears that the applique shapes which are small and angular are most troublesome to me, but I can see the attraction of appliqueing larger, smoother shaped pieces.

Still orange.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing and Applique
Pieces: 17
 

Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 9, C2, H2, H8, M2

Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 8, A6, D9, M10, M12

Draw 8 was perhaps one of the easiest sets of blocks I have done in a long time and it was a nice change to be using some different fabrics.  Thank you to the Followers of my blog who regularly post a comment, it certainly keeps up the motivation.

The next Draw has been done

C2 - Streak of Lightening
H2 - Jacob Anthony
H8 - Eaton's Crossroads
M2 - Duff's Bluff

The colour for this Draw is Orange - back to the same old routine ....

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M12 Hopscotch

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M12 Hopscotch

Do you notice how all those dots on the fabric line up?  During the Nearly Insane quilt journey I became a ' ussying cutting' addict and now if I can fussy cut, I will.  Again, a simple block.

I noticed over at that Temecula Quilt Co blog that they have recently revealed their Dear Jane quilt completion, if you want to pop over and take a look.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 19

Dear Jane Quilt - Block D9 Uncle Richard

Dear Jane Quilt - Block D9 Uncle Richard

This block looks quite simple, but if you start adding up all those little triangles around the edge of the block you will see that there are more pieces involved than originally meets the eye.  There are 36 in total, which for this Dear Jane quilt is quite a lot.  A bit more fussy cutting too.

Dear Jane Quilt - Block D9 Uncle Richard

Part of this block has a plain border around the edge.  This was useful in reigning in the block to its 4.5" size.  You will see that once I had finished the hand stitching on the block it had a bowl shape to it, but nothing a hot steam iron couldn't sort out.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 36

Dear Jane Quilt - Block A6 Uncle Homer

Dear Jane Quilt -  Block  A6 Uncle Homer

You will see I am continuing on the 'yellow' blocks.  The fabric colour is not green and it is not orange - it is not really yellow, but it seems to fall between the other two.  This particular fabric is from Kim Diehl's 'Heritage Hollow' range and I think it is really pretty.

Another variation of a nine-patch block.  Uncle Homer must have been a straightforward chap.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 9

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M10 Simple Simon

Dear Jane Quilt - Block M10  Simple Simon

Dear Jane quilt block M10 Simple Simon is, as it says on the tin - simple.  A simple nine-patch block. The progress of these blocks are much quicker than the Nearly Insane blocks, so it is easy to get a quick fix and get quick results.

BTW I haven't started the Farmers Wife Sew Along. It is a quilt that I hope to do in the future, but DJ is my top priority at the moment.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 9

Dear Jane Quilt Update - October 2015

Dear Jane Quilt Update - October 2015

It is my birthday this week, so keeping up with tradition, I am doing an review of my progress on my Dear Jane quilt so far.  As you can see it is a sea of orange, with one lone red block.  In the past two months I have completed

21 blocks 21/169 (12%)

4 Border Triangles 4/56 (7%)

This works out about 10 blocks a month, so an estimated finish date would be about December 2016, unless I win the lottery and my revised schedule allows me to sew all day long...


Dear Jane block preparation

With so many little blocks, a lot of time is taken in preparing them in packs ready for sewing.  I think the cutting out for some blocks has taken longer than actually sewing them together.

Dear Jane Electric Quilt software - October 2015

To monitor my overall progress here is the image of the progress so far taken in my Dear Jane Electric Quilt software.  I am enjoying using Electric Quilt for this project as I did with the last sampler quilt.  This image is updated an on the sidebar regularly.

Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 8, A6, D9, M10, M12

Dear Jane Quilt - Draw 7, Edge Triangles TR7, LR7, RR7, BR7

So here are the first triangle border blocks for the Dear Jane quilts.  I am pleased to have these under my belt as I don't want to have the border to do at the end.  I have seen many Dear Jane quilts where the maker decided against the border, probably weary of the process, but I definitely want a border.

Onto Draw 8.  These blocks look super simple.

A6 - Uncle Homer
D9 - Uncle Richard
M10 - Simple Simon
M12 - Hopscotch

This round will be in YELLOW. Hurrah - a different colour.  The yellow fabrics are quite murky, neither green or orange, so designated as yellow for the convenience of this project.

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block TR7 Norways Fjord

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block  TR7 Norway's Fjord

Another triangle block done.  I made an alteration to this block.  The original has long slivers up each side, but I have just extended the adjacent blocks to eliminate any unnecessary aggravation during construction. 


Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block  TR7 Norway's Fjord

Here is a picture of the reverse as a reminder that I am doing this all by hand using English Paper Piecing.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 23

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block RR7 Fedelia's Hearts

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block  RR7 Fedelia's Hearts

This border triangle block, Fedelia's Hearts has always been one which stood out for me whenever I saw a Dear Jane quilt in an exhibition.  Again, I was a bit worried about it, but the appliqued hearts went on quite easily and with only 13 pieces it was quick. I seem to be saying that about all the blocks.  I am certainly preferring the speed that the blocks get completed versus the Nearly Insane quilt, but I guess overall it will probably take the same time to get together.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing
Pieces: 13

Joining Slow Stitching Sunday

Dear Jane Quilt - Sashing and Cornerstones

Dear Jane quilt  (G7 - Indianapolis)

You have seen this Dear Jane quilt block before (G7 - Indianapolis), but today it is proudly wearing its new cornerstones and sashings.  The original quilt doesn't have actual cornerstones, but I had a bit of fun with the cornerstones on my Nearly Insane quilt and I think a little extra thought on this area can take a quilt to the next level.

Firstly, the sashing.  If I require lots of the same squares or rectangle shapes for my English paper piecing I usually use the Table function in Microsoft Word.  You can set the size of the table cells in the software and then print out a blank table on regular printer paper ready for cutting up in the shapes that you need.  The sashing will be the same as my background fabric.


Dear Jane Quilt Sashing 0.5" x 4.5"

You can see I managed to get about 30 sashing strips on one sheet, each one being 1/2" x 4.5" and here are some of them prepared with their tacking stitches ready for when I need them.

'Hearthside Seasons' by Kim Diehl

For the cornerstones I am using one of the 'Hearthside Seasons' fabrics by Kim Diehl.  I thought I could fussy cut the stars for the middle.  The cornerstone squares below are English paper pieced and are just 1/2" x 1/2 Inch.

Cornerstones  1/2" x 1/2" - Dear Jane Quilt

 

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block LR7 Sallys' Steeple

Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block  LR7 Sallys' Steeple

I would say this Dear Jane border triangle, Sally's Steeple,  is a pretty typical Dear Jane block, with a bit of piecing and a bit of applique.  I appliqued the shapes in the centre, as well as the very top triangle, rather than have to deal with thin edge bits at the point.  I am pleased to be doing some of these triangles as I don't want the border to be left until the end.


Suzi the cat

I am pleased to say that my Dear Jane efforts have encouraged some of you to resurrect your Dear Jane projects - most notably Sally over at Objects of Design.  You will see her doing the same blocks as me but it in Kaffe Fassett fabrics. This is one of my favourite blogs as you can see not only lots of patchwork and quilting activity, but the internet being used in its purest form - to show pictures of cats and kittens.  I will admit, Suzi the cat has not been as enthusiastic about the Dear Jane quilt as she was about the Nearly Insane quilt. Snoozing in the autumn sun is her current preferred activity.

Techniques: English Paper Piecing and Applique
Pieces: 14