5 years later......

Back in January 2011 I stumbled upon a small group of ladies that were making the Dear Jane quilt. I had never heard of it before, but I looked it up......those little blocks looked so cute.....

Well before I knew it I had clicked "order" and the Dear Jane book was on it way.

Well there are cute blocks, tricky blocks,  and some "what the heck was Jane thinking?" blocks and TRIANGLES. Yikes, those triangles. At first I wasn't even going to do them, but I got sucked in, can't say I enjoyed making them all but I did. And I even did a scalloped border, my first time ever.

It was a LOT of work, many stops and starts along the way. But every time I pulled it back out I loved how it looked so i just kept plodding along, working on those little blocks in between many, many other projects. And finally it paid off.....

Here is my big TA-DA.....

While working on that binding....it took me almost a week to get all that hand-stitching done, I had to have something else fun and easy to work on. Well I saw THIS free pattern that used a layer cake. I'd had a set of gingham prints from Riley Blake, just 11 of them. Seemed like this was the perfect project to use them up. Just 11 10" squares plus  some Kona white and I came up with 5  16"blocks, plus a bonus star block with the leftovers. 

I was thinking a 9-patch layout, 5 blocks with 4 plain white blocks. But I'm not fond of square quilts so I added my bonus block as a top row....52x68"  a great size for a lap quilt, and all from 11 10" squares!

Now to get it quilted.....

Bloom and Dear Jane

I've been busy sewing as usual but I decided to get back to writing about it on my blog.

Lori Holt's Bloom Sew Along was too cute to pass up. I made all the blocks but I chose to put mine in a different setting. And I LOVE how it turned out....now to find some time to quilt it!

I'm also working on Amy Gibson's Sugar Block Club. Almost fell behind on this one, just snuck in the May block before June's blocks were released. I wasn't so fond of all that background fabric this month so I changed up the centers to be a print instead. I'm making 2 sets, one for a boy, one for a girl, both made from scraps. 1st block I used a small stripe but I didn't really like the giant center. I added a circle and liked that a little better. The second one I liked my fabric selection better.

And the BIG project, the one that has been taking the most of my time and attention.....well I decided that May was the month to finally finish up my Dear Jane quilt. I have been working on it off and on for 5 1/2 years.....yikes. I have spent the last week or more quilting it and it is off the frame!! Here's a sneak peak at some of the quilting. 

I found it hard to quilt teeny tiny stuff in those little 4 1/2" blocks, and that was my very first time doing feathers, I practiced a bunch with a pencil and paper first.

This next week will find me making bias binding and slowly and carefully sewing it on. My first time for scalloped edge too.