[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:
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!
Well January .... you started out with so much promise .... what happened to you chick?? Seriously I can’t make any jokes, this has been beyond grim, but lets not go there, this is my happy space so welcome! What has January had in store? Well the blossom Jane got stalled then it got a kick start!! I am so determined to get these all done!
I got this far before the new academic year kicked off, lets not talk about that .... hmmmmm.
I am loving fussy cutting some of the fabrics I bought in Japan, the above pussy cat is taken from some ten inch squares I bought in the fabric district in Tokyo, I had the most amazing day there and can still see the shop I bought this from.
I used the time in between Christmas and new year to finally hang my silk quilt in my home office, none of your virtual background for me!! And it’s a good use for the quilt which Is totally impractical for anything else! And it makes me look like I’m in a throne room!
Well!! Lovely Ruth rabbit showed her true colours! We thought she was all modest but when budthepuppy showed her his latest liberty haul from duck egg threads she came over all louche!!
Not only showed off her liberty paw ....
But her ankle!! We had to press a damp flannel to budthepuppy forehead!
It’s been a liberty kind of month ! I have been looking out for this book for Its Japanese and is a big compendium of most of the liberty designs, all written in Japanese but it gives you the whole fabric range (mostly) but also date of release etc. It’s just so beautiful.
Budthepuppy went of course straight to the page of capel! I so want to document my liberty quilts more, as I am doing with blossom Jane. I’m really enjoying the process. This book will help.
Look at Scoobs in his element! First quilts of 2021! And *drumroll* I have used up all my charm packs!! Yup no more! Above is a combo of mormor and grunge charm packs, I think they go well together.
I love the above a combo of elementary and boathouse charm packs, you cant beat a good old hst layout.
Above is 2 charm packs of savonnerie, a nice retro feel to this one.
Poor Scoobs ...... it was a bit cold out ..... above is a smaller one from one charm pack of zen chic red.
Above is the last of the charm These we’re two kaffe fasset ones, nice simple layout, let the fabric do the talking.
Oh my, really oh my! Friends are the best, Love Natalie is one of the nicest people I have met through lovely lovely lady through and through. I saw her making these beautiful field of hearts quilts but didn’t for a minute think one was destined for me, or should I say us! She said that Mark is such an integral part of the quilting community that it should come to him too. So here is our first husbands and wives holding quilts photographs 🥰
Oh dear, many leaky eyes after that!
And we are finishing January as we began, with blossom Jane, I hope to get the first two rows put together today!! Let see how that goes!
Take care, the next time I furtle I will have been well and truly vaccinated!!
Using up lots of charm packs! here is my wonderful scoobs again. This was a charm pack purchased years ago, its good to use them all up and get them off to linus.
Wow! this brings back memories!!! I do like seeing my memories in photos or on facebook, sometimes they are very poignant. This picture came up a few days ago and prompted me to look out any pictures of the sewing room over the years. I am spending so much time in here just now its like my second home!!!
The above picture is almost the very first set up of the sewing room (or the blue room as we call it, trying to pretend I havent taken it over completely for my hobby 😂) We did originally have a full double bed in there but then we moved that through to the spare bedroom and put a sofa bed in its place. I used to sit or lay on that sofa bed working stuff out or just chilling, we still have the bedding which is on it in the picture! We dont have all the cushions any more though, I am pretty sure i gave away the ones at the back, they were a cross stitch of the seasons from about 25 years ago .... maybe even more! The quilts on the wall date this picture, It must have been after 2012 as I only finished the hello moon one (the one facing us) in 2012, the one on the left wall was from 2011, I still have these, they are my favourites! they still hang in the sewing room almost 10 years later! Mini Bud (laying in his bed on the bed!) is still there of course!
Well this post definately dates this, I think I was using up a whole load of orphan blocks I do remember making some quilts for Linus with a lot of Orphan blocks.
I love the picture below dont know when it was taken but must have been after 2015, that was when I got this table made for me by my lovely chums Mr David! he had a hacksaw and helped me hack this Ikea table so I could get an inset sewing machine bed. That was such a fun day, I still have the table, but now it is a standing table! mounted on five bricks per leg!
I think these were flowers I got from the ARLG group when I was sick, I still remember that, so kind. I only have a few Marks and Spencer tins in the cupboard underneath. change days now!!!!
More pictures of the flowers, but what I notice is the pieces on the chair! I was obviously making the makers tote, challenging patter but one I am proud of making!
Oh the days of the heaty yellow warmy thing 😊 I think I was working at home that day, looking at this picture all I can think about is that I am wearing tights! havent worn those in over a year now .... you can see the cupboards have moved across the room now, they have moved quite a lot in the 15 years we have been here!
so many memories here! the cushion on the rocking chair is from a class I did at the very first stitchgathering! Apple Core with Fiona - poppymakes who is now a chum on Stirlingshire stitch and the Glasgow modern quilt guild. Looking into the cupboard you can see
the IKEA ironing board cover I loved so much, plus no one hour baskets to
ooohhhh look at this, that was a really old configuration, the cutting table beside the radiator 😄 aww, I feel another reorganisation coming on but I dont know what i could do, seeing these pictures make me realise I have tried every configuration possible!! If you look to the middle of the left hand side you will see one of the vey early carpet burns I made!! Its a cheap nylon carpet and doesnt take it well when i drop the iron on it!! and to the right (and up a bit) from the table leg is another carpet burn, I was ironing something on the carpet (do not ask me why ...) and it still melted through the thing i was ironing!!! oh im almost greeting with laughter here! Interesting to see how clear the floor is, I have a lot laying about on the floor now, maybe thats where i start re organising?
awwwww this picture melts my heart it really does. My scoobs, this is from last christmas, my mam was ill last christmas and I went up to look after here for a week, absolutely the right thing to do but i had so many other plans for that week and I really needed some good time off, hey ho, family most important! anyhoo, my scoobs offered to re paint the sewing room for me and got to it straight after he came home, he repainted the walls a nice sunny yellow colour and rehung all my quilts.
Here he is, I do love this man more than I can say.
The chandelier of course still takes pride of place!
I know I am the luckiest person alive, I have this room all to myself, I have a husband who helps me with it and some of the happiest memories in here are of having chums come visit and having my scoobs come eat his lunch here at the weekend and come up with cups of tea. It really is my happy place.
OK ok, i know its all on instagram now but i like to keep up with the FAL on my blog too, just for me 😊 So what do we want from the finish along? Or more so what do I want to do with my quilting this year? We are in another lockdown, yup ok, so I need the quilting to see me through this. If I learned one thing from the last lockdown I learned that I need a mixture of challenging and simple projects. When work kicks off (as it will undoubtedly do! I need to either do mindless quilting that i dont need to think about or loose myself in a r4.5 inch block with 44 pieces and several y seams 😂 so with that in mind here is the FAL Q1 line up!
No 1 - Dear Jane, or blossom Jane as I should call her, my initial thoughts were i would motor on with this but that hasn’t happened, I seem to need breaks from this. Which is fine I am still making good progress.
Awwwww garden trellis in capel. For some reason I can’t seem to start this one? Perhaps i need calmer times? I love capel so so much maybe i cant bear to start it in lockdown? Dunno, it will stay on the list for when i am ready.
Awwww I love a Michael Powell cross stitch, this was a gift from a lovely chum who found this and knew she wouldn’t finish it, I am slowly picking away at it in the evenings.
No 4, oh well we all know my weakness for charm packs! I love them but then never know what to do with them! I had such success using up 5my charm packs over the Christmas break I decided to put them all on my FAL list and clear out all the ones which have been languishing around the sewing room for years! this pair will become a disappearing 9 patch quilt, perfect for Project Linus
Mormor and grunge! A bold pairing! Lets see what these become, disappearing 4 patch perhaps?
These two have been laying around the longest! I think I bought them when my chum Irene was still going to FOQ and she hasnt been for a few years now. Another disappearing 9 or 4 patch for these.
Ditto these two, some lovely charms in here perfect for a more gender neutral quilt I think.
There is just one of these left, I can still see me buying this at Harrogate last year, that was such a lovely trip, little did I know it would be the last big event I would attend before all this kicked off, hey ho, this will be a sweet little Linus quilt hsts perhaps?
so thats it kicked off for this year, lets see where this adventure takes us.
