A January Finish

Remember I said that I was going to add a little SPIN to these Redwork Calendar Girl blocks? Well here we are! Rather than sew the blocks with simple sashings my friend - Sue & I are going to make the redwork months the center of "fancier" blocks. Each month I will come up with a variation of a block design to make it work with the 9" Redwork center. For January I chose to improvise on a block called BROKEN WHEEL. Fitting I thought as wagon wheels don't work so well in snow. (grin)

The block now finishes at 15". I'm hoping that a layer cake of Rouenneries Deux and a quarter yard of tea dyed muslin will be enough to block frame all 12 of these Calendar Girls. Happy to say that January is finally finished!

The original 1930's quilt looked like this one below. You can get the pattern for it at Nana's Needlework ... HERE.



every quilt tells a story....

First Blocks of the JT2 Sew-along

Here are my first 6 blocks of the JT2 Sew-along sponsored by Brenda Papadakis & Gay Boomer. I was going to wait until the redwork was completed for these but time is marching on and the 2nd set of blocks for January have already been posted.

I'm looking forward to participating in this FREE Mystery Quilt sew-along. It's exciting to see the beautiful blocks that so many of my fellow blog friends are posting.
I love all the creative fabric "interpretations" - so much FUN!


I chose to make my quilt just slightly off the traditional solid red/white version. I'm using Jo Morton prints from her Jo's Variety collection, a few medium & dark red solid fabrics and for the background I am going with a variety of "Cream & Tea" hued tonal print & solid fabrics.

If you'd like more information on how to join - just click the JT2 button on the right side of my blog. HURRY the patterns for January are only FREE until the 1st day of February - when the next set of free patterns become available.

every quilt tells a story...

First Official DJ Club Meeting 2012

Monday was SO exciting for me! It was the first meeting of our local Dear Jane Your Way club 2012. I even bought Cake to celebrate!

Here I am going over our block assignments for January.

Due to it's size (30 members) - the club is divided into a day & and evening group.


The highlight of the meeting for our members was a surprise phone conversation (on speaker) with Brenda Papadakis offering words of wisdom & encouragement to our Club members. What a gracious woman she is! Truly an amazing way to begin our club's Dear Jane Journey!

every quilt tells a story....

January Redwork Block

We had a pretty little snowfall on Monday. Now my January block feels more relate-able. A 2011 UFO project - my friend Sue and I are determined that we are going to finish our Calendar Girls quilts this year.

Of course I suggested adding a spin to the quilt. Rather than sew the blocks with simple sashings - we are going to make the redwork months the center of "fancier" blocks. More details coming soon....

every Quilt tells a story.... AUNT REEN

It's Raining JANES!

I've sewn more than 36 little Jane blocks over the past couple of months. Many of these are shop samples for a Dear Jane club that begins on the 16th of January. I've got some pressed against a design board (above) and some more sample blocks shown here below:

After many months of quilters pleading asking for me to organize a Dear Jane Club - I finally gave in happily agreed. (grin)
I've worked diligently on creating a workshop program for the group and now I'm really excited for us to begin!
The owner of our local quilt shop is going to host our club for the next 13 months and will offer monthly fabric "bitty bundles" to our members in their choice of 4 fabric genre's: Civil War, 1930's, Batiks or Modern prints.

There will be an additional Jane chart added to my blog soon. I will be working to finish up my Civil War Jane this year and also begin a Modern Jane quilt for my DIL using mostly Kaffe Fasset fabrics. I'll begin posting my monthly Jane blocks here on my blog at the end of each month.

every Quilt tells a story....

New Sewing Machine Cover

I received this beautiful sewing machine cover from my dear friend SUE for Christmas. I was totally surprised and it was love at first sight! Sue made this for me using fabrics from Fig Tree Quilts.

Check out the fancy,narrow binding she sewed along the bottom of my cover. It fits just perfectly over my Bernina!
Now my machine will be dust free AND beautiful to look at when not in use.
Thank you Sue - you are SEW Wonderful!

every quilt tells a story...

Civil War Journals BOM

It's been months since I've blogged and feel just terrible about that!
My absence was not because of slacking...no FAR from it.
By mid-September I was feeling well enough from surgery to begin sewing again - and I haven't stopped for a moment's rest. lol

I'm working part time again, designing a few quilt patterns and I am teaching 2 Block of the Month programs at my local quilt shop that both begin this month. I finished 4 quilts as samples for one of the Block of the Month programs and LOTS of sample blocks for the other BOM Club.
All of this and my little grandson have kept me extremely busy.

I'll share with you (one project at a time) a bit of what I've been up to:
The Civil War Journals BOM is the 3rd in the Marcus Fabrics Civil War series. These are the 4 Civil War Journals sample quilts that I made for my LQS Club. I cut & pasted them all together which is why they are not all to scale in the photo below. Quilt #1 measures 44" x 53", #2 measures 44" x 53", #3 (bottom right) measures 51" x 60" and #4 measures 44" x 44".


What I really enjoy about this BOM is that you can choose to make 1 Queen size quilt or 4 smaller quilts from the blocks you create. The program shares stories/events of the Civil War using historic content from children's journals.
My sister is making the larger Queen size quilt sample (I'll have pictures of that one to share soon)

I hope all of my friends here in Blog Land had an AWESOME Holiday Season!
Looking forward to catching up on all the creative accomplishments shared here. I am always amazed and inspired by the beautiful work, hearts & minds that gather here.

Happy & Healthy New Year to All!

every quilt tells a story...