One More Week for Lady Jane!

My goal last week was to stitch across the border of Lady Jane and I did it! You can't see the stitching in the border, it's hard to see the white thread in the floral border.

I did take a close up photo though. I've place a pin at the top of where the quilting stops just as a point of reference. It can be hard to see where I'm stitching at times! I do remove the pin before I stitch the row.

I've rolled and the goal for this week is to finish the quilting. The top edge of the quilt has been unpinned from the header and is pinned through the batting and onto the backing.

I'll stitch in the ditch along the bottom edge of the blue outside border and also baste the top edge of that same border.

A question was asked last week in the comment about how far apart the curves were in the Baptist fan quilting. They're 1" apart and all the curves are supposed to be the same distance. There could be a few wobbles in my quilting so they're not perfectly 1".

Here is a link to the Lady Jane pattern. Nancy has many lovely patterns I'd like to make someday in blues & white: Gathered Together, Winter Thistle and many other designs. So many quilts, not enough time!

Last week I was in Wakarusa to get my haircut so I took pictures of the quilt garden. Those begonias have filled in and the garden is beautiful!

There are several benches around the garden with these big pots of flowers. I always think the benches look inviting but I never take time to enjoy them.

In the background you can see what downtown Wakarusa look like on a Wednesday morning @ 8:30 am.

Here is a link for information about Quilt Gardens Along the Heritage Trail.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday, Monday Musings

Two More Weeks of Lady Jane

There are probably two more week of quilting for Lady Jane then she'll be ready for binding.

This post is about quilting the checkerboard border. Maybe it's not really a checkerboard but that's what I'm calling it. First I stitched in the ditch on the bottom of the blue bottom sashing. When that was finished, I advanced the rollers. I have no problem quilting close to the roller when it's diagonal stitching but I do when it's horizontal.

Here is a better look at the checkerboard border.

Still not close enough? How is this?

It's hard to see the white thread on the white side of the bottom edge but it's there. Now I need to do the same thing on the top edge.

Now I've rolled and the whole top border shows. After I quilt the top blue sashing of the checkerboard border, I'll advance a little more then quilt probably half of the flowered border.

Here's a better look at that blue to be stitched in the ditch.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday, Monday Musings

Christmas Stars

The components for the Christmas star blocks have been cut or  pieced. Now the fun starts! 

I'm going to sew the blocks in groups of 10.

The pattern and directions can be found here on Jo's blog.

Linking to Needle & Thread Thursday, TGIFF!, Peacock Party, Finished or Not  Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Another Week Quilting Lady Jane

Another week of hand quilting Lady Jane and I am that much closer to a finish.

First I'll start off with a picture of the row after quilting. This row was the last row of churn dash blocks.

I am enjoying quilting again after taking several weeks off.

Here are are closeup pictures from the left to the right.

The quilt has been rolled and this is the next section to be quilted. I will stitch in the ditch along the bottom of the blue sashing then roll again so the sashing is closer to the bottom. If it's too far down, I'll have trouble stitching it horizontally.

Last week I was asked if I have a problem with a stationery quilting frame since I can't turn the frame. This is how I've always hand quilted. Occasionally I'll quilt a small project in a hoop and it is handy to turn it around but I'm used to my frame. Basically I can quilt every direction I need to, that just comes with experience.

Here is a link to the Lady Jane pattern.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday, Monday Musings

Christmas Star Quilt

I've started another Christmas quilt, no surprise there! I've seen this block before on Jo's blog but decided to start piecing a quilt of my own. Jo has a good tutorial on piecing the block.

I quickly pieced four blocks just so I could see how they look together. The star appears when you place the blocks together. 

This is what an individual block looks like.

I'm in the process of sewing the HST's. With 120 blocks in the quilt and 4 HST's in a block, that's 480 HST's! 

To make the HST's, I'm using the HST's ruler. 

Just make sure you have the right sides together and the triangles are ready to sew.

Sarah will be having a Christmas in July blog hop later this month but I'm busy then and might be absent part of the time. 

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Peacock Party, Whoop Whoop Party, Finished or Not  Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Scrappy Log Cabin Charity Quilt

Last fall I posted about some scrappy log cabin blocks I had found while moving. There were 54 completed blocks and I needed 26 more blocks. I finished piecing the blocks last fall then sewed them into a flimsy in late winter.

I had originally planned for this flimsy to be donated as a comforter top but I liked this flimsy and decided I was going to quilt it myself. He's been hanging around my sewing space guilting ever since. 

I finally decided that last week was long enough and got him quilted. I do fine when stitching the little charity quilts I make, as long as I remember to use the walking foot but quilting a larger quilt is a very different story. 

I didn't get it pinned quite tight enough and there are some puckers. However after washing, the whole quilt is puckered so they don't show as much.

I used light gray thread for quilting the serpentine design. After quilting and washing, this quilt measures 62" by 77".

For backing I used this older fabric from the 90's. At that time, I loved this floral and bought enough to make a shower curtain for our tub & shower in the farmhouse. It made it too dark in the shower so it wasn't in use very long. I took the seams out and have saved it all these years to be used as a quilt backing. It worked nicely for this quilt.

I had planned to use the leftovers of bindings from other quilts to bind this quilt but when I went to the basket, I found this floral binding. I had made it years ago for another quilt then put it in a safe place until needed. I put it in a really safe place and couldn't find it when I needed it! Time to get it used!

Larger pieces of leftover batting were used. My supply of batting pieces is depleted for now but I have 3 quilt tops at Lori's in the process being long armed quilted. There will be more charity quilts in the future.

I used every kind of genre and color of cotton fabric in this quilt. I recently read on another blog where the quilter called quilts that use every color 'scrap vomit' quilts. I don't agree with her, scrappy quilts that incorporate every color can be pretty.

This quilt will probably end up at the chemo center of Goshen Hospital. 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down

Quilting Lady Jane

It's been a long time since I've posted about Lady Jane. Those hexies just kind of took over. Last week I focused on hand quilting again and made it across the width of the quilt! 

Here are photos from left to right.

These darker gray fabrics stitcher harder than the lighter colors. I think it has to do with with the white designs.

This gray leaf fabric stitches the hardest of all!

As usual, you can't see the quilting on the floral border but it does show on the dark outside border.

I've rolled and this is the next swath to be quilted. You can see after I finish the quilting on this churn dash row, the next section is the checkerboard border before the outside border. I'm getting close to the finish! This picture shows the true colors of the fabrics in Lady Jane.

Here is a link to the Lady Jane pattern.

Here is a link to all my Lady Jane posts. Here is a link to the first post about quilting Lady Jane. I see that she went into the quilting frame in January. I haven't been quilting her as long as I thought I had been. 

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Craftastic Monday, Monday Musings