Friday, May 21, 2010

Blogger's Quilt Festival

For the Blogger's Quilt Festival, the quilt I made that I like the most is the Dear Jane quilt that took me a year and a half to do.  I first saw this quilt about 20 years ago when I was browsing the internet but didn't have the skills nor the available time to make it then. 

I knew I wanted to own 'that quilt' so after I began my quilting journey in 2001, I looked for the pattern. There were clubs devoted to the Dear Jane quilts so I joined one and read all the tips I could find about making it including buying the book written by Brenda Papadakis showing each block.  However, the book had only pictures; it was up to the reader to trace and figure out how to engineer each block.

I began the quilt top in 2007 and completed it mid-2009.   I enjoyed the challenge and I understand why so many of the Janiacs make more than one.  I made the traditional baby Jane using a different fabric for every block and triangle.  It was very challenging to find the correct colored fabric and to figure out what method would be best to make each block.  I'm hand quilting my baby Jane and that also is quite a challenge for me.

I guess I'm a scrappy quilt person.  My DJ has almost 5,000 pieces in it.

Jane Stickle was the woman who first made this quilt and dated it "In War Time 1963".  It has 169 4.5" square blocks surrounded by 52 8x5" triangles and 4 corner triangles.


I love working on my baby Jane; I have named it after my g-g-grandfather, who fought and was injured at Vicksburg during the Civil War... it's my Elnathan Jane.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Another block.. and some chickens

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Mother's Day as I did.  It was a beautiful sunny day so I picked up some champagne, fresh fruit and orange juice at the market... thanks to a generous gift certificate from my California son.... and drove over to my daughter's house.

We sat outside in the sunshine eating the crepes with fruit and drank mimosas of champagne and orange juice.  My daughter inlaw and my grandaughter joined us and we chatted until my younger daughter had to leave for work at noon and my DIL and my g-daughter went off to have a picnic at a little beach nearby.

I've never seen anything like this before so i'm calling it a sun halo.  My daughter noticed this ring around the sun while we were working on the chicken coop.  Strange, huh?  And very pretty!  

Since the six newly acquired chicks had no coop outside to live in, my older daughter and I got busy screwing together some plywood and chicken wire to make a small temporary shelter for them.  They looked happy on their perch and their screened in yard
so we took the two dogs and went off to Pritchard Park, which is really a quite nice chunk of sandy beach where dogs off-leash are welcome.  We brought a little picnic along - crackers and a good sour cream/water chestnut/spinach dip that Liza made.  The dogs had fun in the sun meeting and playing with the other dogs, big and small.  After a few hours, we departed to go to my son's where my son, DIL and g-daughter were waiting for us.  After chatting for a couple of hours with them and a drop-in neighbor,

I took Liza and Madeleine home and went home myself to see who would win the Amazing Race.  I was a little disappointed that the Oklahoma brothers, the McCoys, didn't win but it was an exciting race overall.

What a great day!

And, Twiddletails posted the 10th block for the quilt I'm making so I got that done a few days ago too.

Two more blocks to go, then I guess there'll be sashing to go around each block.













Today, I'm going to be a seamstress and cut out the pattern for a skirt and top that my older daughter wants to take to California with her next month.

I hope to finish it quickly.... like in a couple of days at most.  But life can take a twist and turn at any moment so guess I'll see.








Jules wants to help.  I'm sure that will make the project go much faster especially after he sees all that nice, crinkly tissue paper.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

I'll be right back...

The merry month of May is when many birthdays happen, along with Mother's Day.  Five birthdays (oops, just realized that my brother's birthday is on the 11th of May also) that all require mailing of cards and gifts to various destinations - in Canada and the US.  I have been busy as a bee trying to find the right cards, the right gifts and get things in the mail on time.  As it is, I'm not sure I mailed the card to my friend, Danny, in enough time for his card to arrive but I hope so because his birthday is today!!  Happy birthday my friend of more than fifty years!

In addition to birthdays, I have been taxiing people from home to ferry and vice versa because of the weather.  Normally, folks around here are pretty hardy and don't mind a few drops of rain but yesterday it hailed - big, huge blobs of ice fell from the sky!  For a few minutes only, but still!  Five minutes earlier, it had been sunny which is why I didn't have a hat or coat on and had to borrow from my daughter so we could go shopping.  Check this sky out....

It's very overcast outside today too, but I have to go out so instead of walking, I'll be driving the minivan.  lol  So much for my exercise today.

So, this entry today is to say that "I'll be back ASAP."  Being that I'm not the most prolific blogger anyway, I'm sure that won't come as a complete surprise to anyone reading this.