February furtle

 *sigh* blogger why do you put pictures in random order? Ok let’s start with the non crafty stuff first! February has been a month of several seasons .... this picture was taken this week towards the end of February when spring is most definately in the air! Thank flipping goodness!!

Because February started off with almost 10 inches of snow!! And it just added an extra layer of *meh* onto lockdown!! Hey ho it was pretty but pretty much meant I was stuck indoors for almost three weeks .... could have been doing without that to be honest!

Pretty back garden!

I did get out a couple of times when the snow was deep enough and not too slippy, you can see how chuffed I was!

As it was February love was in the air!! Very different valentines from last year when we spent it in Tokyo!

Right let’s get down to the crafty stuff!! The university gave us a rest day, thank you! (We deserve it ...) I decided to use it to work on something I hadn’t started yet, my garden trellis quilt which I am going to do mostly in liberty capel!  Poor mini bud had the vapours at first at the thought of me actually using the capel .... he soon got over it when he saw how much fun he could have playing with it.

2021 seems to be the year of embroidery, I decided to do Carina craft blogs temperature embroidery, the inner circle, if the minimum temperature each day and the outer colour is the maximum, I’m going to do a page each month plus a mandala in colours to match the season.

I signed up for a free sew long! Linen and .threads, i saw the one the did last year but that was neve on the cards but this year I am definately going to do it, these are the first two months.

Motoring on with the capel quilt, the appliqué put me off but I just decided to machine it.

Mini bud in his element.

I did the first block by hand, I do like the effect but my hands won’t do it all so machine it is!

I also signed up for Carina craft blogs feb four mandala stitch along, I will use these with the temperature blocks, here are the first two.

The penguins got a bit tipsy ...

Annnnnnnnd I got back to blossom Jane, to be honest these two blocks kicked my butt, big time but hey ho, they will be lost in the overall scheme of it.

See you next month!

Blossom Jane update part deux

 Well progress on Blossom Jane was halted by the urge to use up all my charm packs, now they have all been used I can come back with a clear conscience to Blossom Jane.

The last time I posted I had got up to block B01 I think, I am doing them all in sequence and aiming to only use one unique accent fabric for each one. I have managed that so far but am running out of options I think I will order a Japan crafts layer cake and fingers crossed get enough out of that for a lot of them.

So this weekend I realised I had all of rows A and B finished! so with no more ado I whacked them together:

My main concern is that the background colours dont shien through enough so you can see the differences between the red gold and blue, but hey its a big busy quilt! there is enough going on here to keep folks amused!

Love the one above, you can see my iron burn ...

I really want to find out more about the era Jane Stickle made her quilt in, so much resonates with just now, very very different and no we are not technically at war but there are so many similarities with feelings anxieties and using craft to keep us sane!

the book below is the book which inspired the whole 'Dear Jane' phenomenon, it was the one in which the quilt first appears in print. I was glad to find a second hand copy, fascinating reading.

So these are my first blocks in row C, I only have 16 blocks and then I will be in single figures for getting the rows done. Its all in the process!

I do love the one above but blimey that was tricky to get the placement of the figures!

Blossom Jane - Journey begins

[well this started off as a page .... Im never sure about whether something should be a page or a post .... its the librarian in me!!! So I made the page but then I thought its just going to end up as one long stream of pictures of individual blocks? so now I will post about it as I go along and pull together with a label .... sometimes I infuriate myself!]

And so the journey begins 😊😊 lets see where this take us.

I want to make this quilt for my next quaffle (quilt raffle) I was blown away by the support for my last quaffle and knew i wanted to do another. This pandemic has hit us so hard in so many ways, this is what i can do to help. Plus its good my my mental health!

I have wanted to make the Dear Jane Quilt for so long, never quite sure how i would do it or if i could do it. Now I am confident enough in my quilting skills that i think i can do it. I needed to find the fabrics i wanted to do it in. We were sooooooo lucky to get our holiday into Japan just before the lockdown hit. This was also March the season of blossom and I saw so much blossom on my walks.

This is where the idea for the Budsmam Blossom Jane began. Now we all know i love a metalic fabric and especially Japanese metallics .... so the back ground is a no brainer! I got 4 meters each of three of my favourite blossom fabrics from Japan Crafts. I spent ages messing about with colouring in and excel and finally came up with my starburst layout.

I have a new notebook, which i aim to record the progress in. I dont have a copy of the book, cheapest i can find it is £70 !!! A good friend loaned me hers and its interesting but i am more interested in the book "plain and fancy" by Richard Cleveland which is where Brenda Papadikis first saw the Jane Stickle quilt. So I have ordered a copy of that. The most interesting article I read about this was by the lovely Jane Rae:

Jane Rae on the Dear Jane quilt for Gathered magazine

Fascinating. I aim to try and follow what Jane Stickle did as much as possible, the center block G7  had green fabric in it which was only replicated in the outer edge 4 blocks. I like that, Jane seems to have had a sense of order and symmetry which touches me. I need this too, and in these times i feel the need for it more and more.

Well after a search on ebay, i got a copy of the book! it cost £50 but thats the cheapest i have seen it anywhere. I am still waiting for the plain and fancy book and the civil war quilt books to arrive, really excited to see what they say!

Ok first few blocks made! got stalled a bit but thats ok.

This block is the first I made, its top left on the quilt, Jane didnt repeat any fabrics apart from the green she used in the center block, that she repeated in the four corners. So I am using this green to replicate that.

I love this, so glad i thought of this, inspired by a person on IG who records her liberty fabric like this. As i am not keeping the quilt i felt this was a good way to still have a physical record of it.

the block on the left is a favourite, it has Osaka Castle in the middle and mount Fuji top right

 I managed to pick away at this over the christmas break, some more challenging than others! Now I am thinking do I make these blog posts and pull together with labels? Rather than have a page? Oh the dilemma!!!

Och, stick as a page just now and put on the furtle, thats what i will do.

This one with the bunnies might be my absolute favourite so far!