Finished another couple DJ blocks

I finally finished this Dear Jane block that I've been working on for four weeks! It is D 8 Dee Dee's Delight. I appliquéd it using the back basting method. I was happy with the way it turned out. This sharp points are murder to get right!

Last night I decided to try out my new hand crank sewing station and pieced a paper pieced block. This is the mirror image :-) of A 1 Pinwheels Gone Awry. Sorry about the funny colour...there was a halogen light on when I took the picture! It really is navy and white. I pieced this block on my new, old hand crank machine called "Dear Jane".

Here is "Dear Jane" all cleaned, oiled and spruced up. I got this machine given to me by a lady named Jane and I thought it very appropriate for paper piecing my Dear Jane blocks. I really like using a handcrank machine for paper piecing as you have so much control.

I set up a paper piecing station by placing Dear Jane in a lovely library table that's designed to hold this particular machine. When I want to paper piece, I just move my treadle over to the right, table with vintage Bernina machine to the left, insert Singer sewing stool and paper piece away. It worked very well.

Here my two American Girl dolls are looking on! The one on the left is Kit (1930's era). I got her from my husband for Christmas a few years ago. The one on the right is one of those 'just like me' modern American Girl dolls that I found sitting at the side of a driveway at a yard sale a few years ago! My daughter has Samantha and I thought that doll looked a lot like her. I picked it up and sure enough, the brand name was on her...for a quarter she came home with me! One eye won't close anymore and one arm is a little lame, but she's in good company in my sewing room :-).

And another Psalms block...

Just finished another Psalms block tonight. This is called Ocean Waves and is from Psalm 46. I used some new batiks that I bought a few weeks ago. Love this swirly fabric!

Psalms Block

Finally got another one of the Psalms blocks finished. This is Psalm 23, A Table for Four:

Matthew's quilt

This quilt top was finished quite awhile ago and when one of Jake's co-workers announced that he and his wife had a brand new baby son, I thought this one would be appropriate. It's one of those stacked four patch designs which is really fun to do. There wasn't enough fabric to use for the border and I couldn't find anything to work with the bright busy fabrics, so it just got binding :-). Here is the finished quilt:

The back, incorporating a leftover piece of the original fabric:


The quilting:


A couple of the blocks close up:



With a kid's print these work up almost like an I spy.

Micah's quilt

I got sidetracked again from my UFO's (unfinished objects) to make this quilt for Micah, a 5 year old boy who is having serious surgery today. Of course he needed a quilt to give him hugs :-). I dug out this cowboy fabric and matched up squares to go with it, but it was too busy for the border. I had lots of it, so used it on the back instead. With the 7" squares I had, I could cut them in half and use rectangles for the borders. I really like this layout and will use it more often.

The quilt is meandered as I was in a hurry to get it finished and I used a wonderful variegated multi coloured thread which I purchased at the Marsh Store. The label says, "Superior Threads, Rainbows trilobal polyester and it was colour no. 842.
These I spy quilts are so fun to work on. The quilt was pieced on a Singer 403 electric machine from the 1960's (my trusty treadle needs to be serviced :-) and quilted on a vintage Bernina minimatic model 807.

Now back to the UFO's after I clean up my sewing room!

Kara Abigail's Quilt

Our 5th grandchild, Kara Abigail was born on October 15th. I handquilt the first quilt for my grandbabies and this one wasn't quite finished! She was born a week early, so that's my excuse! It has been finished for a little while; just haven't had a chance to upload the photos onto my blog. This design was done using the fractured 9 patch or magic 9 patch. You start with a large 9 patch block and cut it in half both ways and play around with the smaller blocks to get a nice layout. The corner of the quilt:

Back of the quilt showing the quilting:

The finished quilt. I used two similar original 9 patches; one with a green center and one with an orange center and a 9 patch with the print in the center for the border blocks. A lippy and binding using the blue brought it altogether:

Quilting in the center:

Quilting in the borders:

My daughter Amanda and my two daughters in law, Heather and Jannyne, chose the fabrics for this quilt. Kara loves looking at the bright colours.