FOUR MORE BLOCKS COMPLETED

I recently completed a quilt so I have some time to work on Dear Jane blocks so four more have been added to the file.

A5 Cathie's Campfire

 

 A5 Cathie's Campfire. Another foundation paper pieced block.  This was my second attempt at this one the first was done in a check fabric and I wasn't careful to keep my checks square and it looked really awful so it went in the bin and I am very happy with this one.



A8 Florence Nightingale
 

A8 Florence Nightingale Foundation paper pieced.  This one should have been quite straight forward but I had lots of problems mostly my own stupid errors such as putting fabric the wrong way around and not checking that the piece I was using would fit the space really silly errors and quite frustrating.

A4 Courtney's Stethoscope

A4 Courtney's Stethoscope this one I paper pieced but found that it was easier to remove the paper when joining the sections and the borders.


A6 Uncle Homer

A6 Uncle Homer This one I rotary cut and pieced quite simple but still you need to keep your seams straight something I am not always good at.

I also have a block I am working on in English Paper piecing these take some time as I do them whenever I have time to spare it takes quite a while to tack the pieces onto the paper but the joining is quite quick.

B2 SWEET TATER PIE

This was another one I felt would work well with English Paper Piecing and I was right it went well.  I quite like this method mainly because I can work on it anywhere.  Mostly I do it at work at lunch time.  Its very easy to carry around a small snap lock bag with pieces and cotton and scissors.  I am very happy with the final result.  Its now filed away with the others just waiting for some friends to join it.

B3 Mirror Image

After some discussion with my daughter about Hunters Moon she mentioned paper piecing....No not foundation paper piecing ... English paper piecing.   That means a completely hand sewn block....OK its another new skill to learn so I did some more reading and printed the templates chose some fabric and made a start.  This is something I can do in my lunchtime or even in a waiting room at the Doctors :-).  I have to do some unpicking in the begining as I had not really thought about which parts to join first but I am happy with the finished product and have moved on the the next one.

A3 Hunters Moon

This one has been bothering  me I read the instructions that come with the CD plus several other posts on how its done.

Finally I got together with my quilting buddy and we read the instructions together.  It all seemed fairly straight forward so off we went.

The Melon seeds went together quite well and we thought this isn't too bad at all but then it all went bad and we just couldn't figure out how to put the rest together.  In the end we assembled the outside section and reverse appliqued the centre.  The result is not perfect.... but finished! for now we may just revisit this one.  

Dear Jane for me is all about learning different quilting techniques while completing this amazing quilt.  So far I have leant so much by the end this this project I should know it all :-)

A2 One Two Buckle My Shoe

This one I did with Foundation paper piecing which I am quite liking although I was a little tired the night I did this one and pushed to finished before bed so it wasn't quite as good as I think I can do.  But you know the saying Finished is better than Perfect.

 

I have since unpicked the bottom row and reattached I must upload a new pic.

TWO MORE BLOCKS B1 and C9 BATCHELORS BUTTONS AND JANES TEARS

Applique

We were going away for the Easter weekend and as we were staying with my Dad and Sister in Law and Partner I decided it would be inappropriate to take my sewing machine on holidays! (If they hadn't been joinging us I would have :-))

So with this in mind I decided to have a go at some needle turn applique.  I have recently looked through  my daughter's completed DJ blocks and thought if she can do it I can do it.  I spent the week prior watching as many video's as I could on Needle turn applique to learn how it was done.  Off to spotlight the day before we left for some silk thread and some applique needles.  Then I printed off the template patterns for four blocks that required applique and found some materials cut out some five and a half inch squares and packed it all in a nice ring binder with front cover and all ready to do.

The first one was Batchelors Buttons and I was very happy with the result.  I would say its definately not perfect but in pretty OK and seeing as its a small block in the whole quilt I think it will pass.

This one I used freezer paper to cut out circles with a 1/4" seam ran a row of stitching around the edge the pulled the circle in around the paper pressed them and then pulled out the paper.  This gave me a good solid circle shape to applique on.

 

 

B1 Bachelors Buttons

 

The second block was Jane's tears which was a little harder as I used needle turn applique method on this one.  I have never done this before so it took a while to get the hang of it but I am happy with the finished product.  As I said before in the overall big project it will look OK.



C9 Janes Tears

A1 Pin Wheel Gone Arry FIRST BLOCK

My First Dear Jane Block

Because I like to be organised I have to start at the top of the square on block A1 I just couldn't start anywhere else.  So I printed a Foundation Paper Piecing pattern for block A1 and found some green fabric and calico and started.

Along the way I made quite a few mistakes and had to unpick.  One section I actually threw in the bin and reprinted another pattern and started again.

The finished product was good and I am very happy with it.  I have decided that I definately need a Add a Quarter Ruler and I have purchased some foundation paper piecing paper.  Although for my first one I just used ordinary computer paper and it was fine.  It will be interesting to see if the correct paper makes a difference.

Here is it !!!

 A1 - Pin Wheel Gone Arry

FOUNDATION PAPER PIECING

I discovered foundation paper piecing while researching dear jane and started to think about makeing some blocks with this method.

My friend and I are in the process of a block of the month quilt where the tutorial was given using half square triangle paper.  We loved this method and found a program to print our own half square triangle paper.  

I then moved on to watch and learn more about Foundation paper piecing so that I could use it to make my Dear jane blocks.

This is a great way to make very acurate blocks and half square triangles.

IN THE BEGGINING

In the Beggining

Quilting is something I have taken up in later life basically because I was bored and needed a hobby of some kind.  My best friend also decided to join me in this hobby so we started off with a Block of the Month and absolutely no idea what we were doing.  The internet is one of the best places to learn something new and thats where we got most of our information reading and watching you tubes.

I came across these post and websites about Dear Jane,  often referred to as That Quilt and as I did more research and reading I thought, this is something I would like to tackle.  I am not kidding myself into thinking that it will be done in record time because I have lots of other things I want to do, but maybe an ongoing project that I can pick up whenever I feel like making a block.

So firstly I bought the book, then quickly realised that I really needed the computer program.  I continued reading and learning more about this project. We were off on a trip in our caravan to Melbourne so I decided I would have a go at hand piecing a block during our travels.  I laboriously traced off a couple of patterns and found some fabric and packed it all with my small cutting board and needles and thread etc.  I managed to complete one block which looked quite ok, but I was still undecided on the background fabric

At a later date my daught gave me a copy of the CD. I installed it on my computer and promptly forgot about it, although not completely it was still in the back of my mind.  We were going into the silly season and we get so busy there is no time to do anything except socialise but once it was over I again started to think about Dear Jane.  I read lots of posts and was having difficulty deciding what fabric to use for the background.  I didn't want to lay out hundreds of dollars on fabric and put it in the cupboard for the next ten years.  I came accross a post by a young woman who was wanting to make a dear jane but had limited funds.  What she had written made me stop and think. Jane would have used what ever was available like many others of her time such of old clothing and whatever fabric she could find during war time. So why not use what was readily available, with this in mind  I decided Calico was going to be my background fabric.  Its easily obtained anywhere and the price is right. The rest of the fabrics will be what ever I have in my small stash and any interesting pieces I find when I am shopping for fabrics.

I plan to stick to the colours of the original but not necessarily the same fabrics.