Heart and Flower and DJ block

First of I want to thank Kristina for the beautiful hand appliqued Heart and Flower block she sent to me. Your thoughtfulness is very much appreciated.

Then below is my last Dear Jane finish - H-2.
The center is paper pieced and I finished the block off by hand appliqueing the two small triangles on the outside.
Today I'll work on this weeks BOW and with tomorrow's UFO sew-in scheduled, I'll concentrate on making progress on the QFC quilt.

Two more Dear Jane blocks!

L-8 Box Kite

L-7 Town Square

With the finish of L-7 (Town Square) and L-8 (Box Kite) I'm up to 72 finished blocks and 1275 pieces.

70th Dear Jane block finished

This is what my Dear Jane wall looks like with 70 finished blocks. All in all there are 1243 pieces in the blocks so far.
E-7 / Bread Basket is my finish for today with 41 pieces. I changed the block a little, because although I don't have problems with y-seams, I just wasn't in the mood for those today, so I used straight seams on the outside units. I will put the steps in another post.

I-3 finished and QFC layout

I-3 is finished!





Today I cut out some sashing pieces with star tips and sashing squares. This is what it looks like so far. The quilt will be a double/queen size once it's done with borders.

A-5 is done

This weeks BOW is A-4, but since I finished that one already, I paper pieced A-5 today.

H-8

Here is my finished H-8 block, but since some of my quilting friends asked how to go about this block, I've added some pictures of the steps I took below.
You also can find instructions for this block on http://dearbabyjane.blogspot.com/ in a slightly different approach from mine. She's doing a fantastic job at breaking the blocks down into manageable bits and pieces. :o)

First off I always start out by printing out the block I'm about to work on and then start doodling notes on the paper on how to tackle it, as seen above (you should be able to enlarge the picture by clicking on it).

So, first I started out by piecing the center.

I cut out all of the other pieces and lay them out. BTW, the corner triangles are pretty much cut to size, so if you want to follow my approach and build in a bit of a security, you might want to cut the squares for those 2 1/2" instead of the 2" I used. There really wasn't much to trim for me from the corners, when I squared up the finished block.


Next I took my Olfa circle cutter and adjusted the cutting distance to 1 1/4". The measurement was taken directly from the block without seam allowance, because of the method I use, which should start making more sense in a second.
So I cut the circle out of freezer paper and ironed the shiny side of the freezer paper to the backside of the fabric I'm planing on appliqueing to the center.


With the freezer paper "sticking to the fabric I cut out the center, leaving about 1/4" seam allowance. In order to be able to turn the seam allowance back, I make little snips into the fabric, then I use a water soluble glue stick to apply glue just on the seam allowance and start turning it back onto the freezer paper, smoothing the edge with my finger as I go along.


The result is this perfectly smooth circle that's ready for the applique.

I place the circle exactly into position and baste it with the largest stitch by machine. Then I choose the applique thread that most closely matches the fabric that you applique (in this case a light blue).


Here's a picture with the finished hand applique and the machine basting stitches still in place.

And this is how the applique looks from the back side with the freezer paper and basting stitches still in place and the applique fabric not trimmed down to the 1/4" seam allowance yet.


I then go ahead and remove the basting stitches, trim the seam allowance and to remove the freezer paper I spritz the backside with water and let it sit for a moment, so the glue has time to dissolve. The freezer paper will pull off very easy.


This is a close-up of how I trimmed the QST's.

I hope the pictures are helpful, but don't hesitate to ask if you want me to clarify one of the steps.

Dear Jane progress

This week I finished my 61st block on my DJ journey. I've also finally chosen the fabric I want to use as the sashing and for the unpieced triangle units in the border - a dark blue Moda Marble.
You can take a look below at the blocks that are finished so far.



The fabric below the blocks is what I'm planing on using as the sashing fabric.

Below are my most recent block finishes:

This is where I check off my blocks. Once as numbered and then as pictured in the layout.

Sunday doings

Today I finished the BOW of the Dear Jane list, I-13 Sweet Harmony. I edited the pattern slightly, but then it's my quilt, so I'm allowed to use creative freedom. lol
With this block I'm up to 56 blocks now and total 877 pieces.









This is the second postcard I received from the Stashbuster swap I'm in.
Pat L. sent this cute card to me. Thank you Pat.


Here's a Bucilla ornament kit I'm also working on. Patriotic felt ornaments. So far I've cut some of the pieces out and bagged them individually. I hope to have all ornaments done before Christmas.

So much for today. Hope you all had a great weekend!

More crafty things

After backing Michelle's healing quilt with the black and bright cat fabric, I still had plenty left over for other crafty/quilty items. I ended up making some more checkbook covers, wallets and napkin holders for the staff at Dreaming Summit Animal Hospital and the small table topper for Dr. Hillebrand.

Then I also finished my 46th Dear Jane block. So far I have not counted pieces, but I think if I want to add the statistics to my siggy line I should start, before it's too much too count for the entire quilt. lol This block alone consists of 40 pieces.

45 Dear Jane blocks

Just finished my 45th Dear Jane block. I took all of the blocks I've finished so far out of the folder I stored them in and put them up on my design wall to get an idea of what it's going to look like. Definitely a far cry from the traditional Dear Jane. Once all of the blocks are done, which will probably take me a year, I am planing on using a blackish blue sashing and colorful cornerstones at each intersection, but we'll see how this quilt comes along.