I have officially lost my mind and started a Dear Jane Quilt. I have been lusting after this quilt for years, and even started one once, but kind of lost my mojo. I totally got the bug again, and have set a semi-reasonable goal of 5 blocks a week. Which is totally doable, until I get to the appliqué blocks which will probably take at least a month each. I may be re-conceiving the goal at that point.
But for now, the results of Week 1!!!! I have to say, I'm in love with my first 5 Dear Jane blocks. They're certainly not perfect, but I'm having fun and learning a lot as I go. Plus, they're just kind of delicious, so that's a bonus.
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| block A1 |
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| block A9 |
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| block A11 |
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| block B4 |
block B10
Any words of encouragement, Interwebs?
Happy stitching!
Kelly
Go Kelly Go! This might inspire me to start my Farmer's Wife again. . .
ReplyDeleteYou totally should! Mutual encouragement! :-)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful fabric selection for your blocks. And I love your blocks so far. Those appliqué blocks won't be so daunting when you get to them. Believe me.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am a sucker for aqua and red together, and I love a sensible polka dot! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI too, have been wanting to make a Dear Jane quilt forever. I have had the book for a few years and I finally made my first block a few weeks ago....then I lost my mojo. So kudos for making 5!! That's great. You've just inspired me to go home and make block #2.
ReplyDeleteI was about to say- get with Phoebe, after this weekend of course, and get her going again too.
ReplyDeleteI also started a Dear Jane quilt this year. I refer to it as my 'Dear Jane, what were you thinking?' quilt. The applique blocks are not as bad as you think. Hang in there! I am sure it will be worth it in the end. (But I have to say that or I would not be able to justify my own decision to start one, right?) I have made about 35 blocks so far. I am enjoying it and would have made more, but I switched to making handmade gifts in the lead-up to Christmas. Too many things I want to make, not enough time ...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement, ladies! Sounds like a lot of us are working up the gusto to try one of these sampler quilts, so let's start working on 'em together! Should we start a Flickr group for this little challenge?
ReplyDeleteI just joined a Dear Jane BOM...curious how much fabric you purchased to make yours? Mine is only reds and whites but I love the look of your modern DJ. Might have to try it sometime. Do you use the software too ?
ReplyDelete@K - Those are all good questions and I have not so great answers. The book is really vague about fabric amounts, mostly because it's so scrappy. When I decided to do a mostly two-color DJ, it made my life a little easier. Basically I bought about 10 yards of the white/dot background fabric, and about the same of the blue. (Hint: I bought it in Paducah when the fabric was about $4 a yard!) The reds are just little scraps from my stash. I think I'll have enough, but it's really hard to tell at this point when I'm only about a quarter of the way there. I'm just trying to be careful... fingers crossed! I don't use the software because I'm a Mac girl, so I use the book to copy the patterns - I mostly paper piece. I'd love to hear more about your BOM!
ReplyDeleteGO FOR IT. I just got my CD in mail last week so I'm trying to get my MOJO to start.
ReplyDeleteWoohoo!!!! I love meeting fellow Janiacs! What fabrics are you using, Carol?
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting the planning stages of my DJ quilt...but I love your little graph to keep track of what's done. How did you make it and plug the blocks in?
ReplyDeleteMy "design wall" is pretty low tech. I made a grid of squares in an Excel Document, making sure that the entire grid fit on the screen at once (in other words, so you don't have to scroll down to see any part of the grid). You can add sashing by inserting rows and columns between the square cells and sizing them the same width/height.
ReplyDeleteTake a picture of your block, doing your best to be straight-on to the block (not sloped or angled). Take the photo into a photo app (I use iPhoto), and edit as desired. The most important thing is just to crop it down to a perfect square.
Import the squared-up picture to Excel, and shrink it down until it fits exactly in an Excel grid square. You can move the photo around and place it in the cell you like.
To get the photo, I just took a screen shot of the grid (that's why it needs to fit on the screen all at once - - so you can take the full screen shot).
It's not by any means a great tool for design work, but it's nice just for a photo record of what you've done and how far you have to go!
If you have access to page layout software, like inDesign, that would be a far better place to do something similar, but Excel works in a pinch!!!
Thanks Kelly! I'll have to see what is on my phone, since that is what I'll be taking pics with. :)
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