Tag Archives: kaffe fassett

Jane for April 2015

This month I managed to finish 3 blocks before the monthly meeting.

I am finding some different modern fabrics to work with that I think work well with all of the Kaffe fabrics that I have been using.

Here are my blocks:

: E-9 Quilt Jail

: H-12 Hannah Lou’s Hearts

: G-2 Mohawk Trail

My heart’s are looking more like a flower, but I needed to use Green and Green Hearts did not seem very appealing to me so I went with pink and bright green fussy cut flowers.

If you look at Mohawk Trail you will see that I haven’t stayed with the program once again! The center block is rotated. I think this looks better and several of the ladies in my group thought so, too. Sorry Jane!

I have decided what I will use for sashing fabric, although at only 61 blocks finished perhaps I am thinking too far ahead? But, I needed to because I discovered that I was using up my 10 yards of backing fabric much too quickly. No doubt due to my extravagant cutting when paper piecing. I tried to get more of the same fabric, but after buying from two sources and getting two different greige goods that were not the same shade of gray (ha ha, gray greige goods!) I decided that I will be using a different color for my sashing. And, that will be a nice light brown/gray fabric. I am using Moda Bella Stone for my sashing.

Vintage Butterfly Applique Quilt

I have finished my vintage butterfly quilt. I love the colors in this quilt! This is the quilt I made with my vintage 30’s butterfly applique blocks that were a gift from my Mother-in-Law’s friend. As I mentioned in my last post her friend Pat gave me some “quilted fabric” that turned out to be wonderful quilt tops and blocks that her mother made in the 30s.

I saw Pat yesterday and she was very pleased with both quilts, but I could tell the Bow Tie quilt was calling to her, so I gave the finished quilt to her. She is going to give it to her mother for Christmas. He mother is in assisted living with short term memory loss. But, her long term memory is fine so I imagine it will be quite exciting for her to see her old quilt top again. At least I hope so! Maybe she will be wondering when and how it turned from a quilt top to a finished quilt!

The Butterfly Treasure Quilt took all of my quilting attention for the last few weeks. Both it and the wall hanging version are finished. The wall hanging is made with some wonderful Kaffe Fassett prints, so it gives the 30s pattern a new look! The pattern for both is also finished now and for sale at Craftsy.

Quilting Treasures

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with my Mother-in-Law at our local town lunch place. One of her friends joined us and was telling me about some “quilted fabric” she found while cleaning her mother’s place out. She asked if I would like to have it. I have to be honest; I was not too enthused, but, I said I might be able to use it for something.

A few days later Bob arrived home from dropping off groceries for Isabel with a shopping bag full of some real quilting treasures. I found fabric pieced together in the 30s waiting to be quilted!

Inside I found a 70″ x 70″ quilt top. It is a very scrappy Bow Tie block quilt. I added borders and quilted it, but still need to add the binding.

The next thing I found in the bag was a set of 24 butterfly applique blocks that had been pieced together. I was going to just add some borders and quit it up, but Colette at Quilters Common insisted that I needed to take the top apart and use the blocks to create a full size quilt. She was certain whoever made the blocks intended to make a much larger quilt.

With this thought in mind I decided to take the top apart and trim the blocks so they were all 7 1/2″ squares and use them with nine patch blocks in an Irish Chain setting. I am glad I listened to Colette, because I am falling in love with this quilt top. I still need to add the borders and quilt it, but, I have a plan for the quilting.

Since I was designing a top with the butterfly blocks I decided write a pattern for the quilt. I needed to include instructions for the Butterfly Applique Blocks, so I thought it only fair that I make a few of them myself.

I ended up with a nice little wall hanging sized quilt made with Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I have to thank Alice for coming to my rescue and picking out the the perfect shade of dot fabric for me. I was having a difficult time finding just the right fabrics for my nine patch blocks.

Once I get these quilts finished I will finalize the pattern and you will find it for sale on Craftsy. The pattern will include instructions for both sizes of the quilt.

But, there is one more treasure to show you. Two Sunbonnet Sue blocks were also in the bag of treasures.

I have added borders to them and will be making pillows with them …. AND I am using scraps from my projects to stuff the pillows. Save yours up and do the same thing with them!

When looking at all of these quilting treasures I see fabrics in the Butterflies and Sun Bonnet Blocks that are also in the Bow Tie Quilt top. Isn’t it interesting to have a set of projects that have more than likely been worked on by one person!

Jane I Have Not Given Up on You!

Okay, here they are! More Jane blocks.

My Jane Stickle group is concentrating on the G Row to get one entire row done. I am now about 6 months behind, so I decided to focus on those as well, rather than do them in the order assigned.

I completely hand pieced Block G8 and I am happy with the result. It was a bit frustrating at first and I concluded that I am happy the sewing machine was invented! This is not a Kaffe or a Phillip or even a Westminster fabric, but I think it works well with them. Guess I have decided to branch out and mix some other fabrics in. If I have a fabric that works I am going to use it! No one in my group seemed to notice my Kaffe Fassett/Phillip Jacobs departure, so I got away with it!

I did give hand piecing another try with G1. I thought it would be too difficult to try curved piecing on the machine because the curve seemed a bit too tight. I finished this block with the machine.

For block G7 I decided to go ahead and try machine piecing the curves and it went quite well. I pressed the pieces in half to line up the centers and pinned at the center and each side. I put the convex piece on the bottom when sewing. I only redid one of the curved seems and I actually ended up redoing that one twice!

G9 is just straight forward paper piecing and I used an Amy Butler fabric this time (at least it is a Westminster fabric!). I wanted to use this orange!

Finally, I was looking at my progress chart and double checking to see if I had everything in the right place. I found my chart had a couple of blocks in the wrong row and also discovered a block with the wrong fabric! But, aren’t I lucky because the block is D13, which is just about the easiest block you could find yourself redoing. So, I now have a red and an orange D13.

And to wrap things up I will also show you the second B12 that I made some time ago because I was not happy with my first try at reverse applique. The first is really not so bad, but I think I like the fussy cutting in the redo better.

Is this more than you ever wanted to know about my Jane blocks??

Oh!! …. in case anyone is counting I finally got 50 blocks done! WOOT WOOT!!

Poor Neglected Jane

After many moths of neglecting my Jane quilt I finally got some blocks put together for the July meeting.

Here are each of my blocks. The Star block was a bit of a challenge, but the method we used for the center was to fold a little square in half which worked out wonderfully.

I did have a bit of a hard time getting one of the background pieces lined up correctly when paper piecing the star. After ripping out three times I grabbed a 6″ width of fabric strip, placed the paper on top off that and ran it through the machine. Plenty of room and no wasted fabric after I trimmed it … how’s that for a new paper piecing method!

November Jane Blocks

I am now up to date with my Jane Blocks. This month I was working with my Singer 301 Sewing Machine which just got cleaned and had some adjustments made. It is such a nice machine. It has a great stitch and is amazingly light. Perfect for taking to class.

I also wanted to comment on this month’s triangle block. Instead of appliqueing the curved piece on the bottom I decided to just sew it on with the machine because it is not much of a curve. And I cheated with the little melon. Yes, I did. It is fused in place with steam a seam and machine stitched around the edges. I think this will be just fine. After all, this is a MODERN Dear Jane quilt, so I am using as many modern techniques as I can!

September Jane Blocks

Here they are! This months selection of Jane Blocks. I found some time to get them together. All warm colors this month for my color scheme. Lots of paper piecing and one block with applique. I cut out templates for the circles and melons and then used a needle and thread to gather the edges of the fabric around the template. A blast of “starch” held the gathered fabric in place … and sorry I did not take pictures to show you how to do that!

August Jane Blocks

Good Grief. It’s nearly the end of August and I still haven’t shared my Jane Blocks.

I enjoyed putting these blocks together … not too much applique this month. Just the handle of the basket, which I did by machine. Not sure if that was a good idea or not, but it looks okay. I used steam a seam and ironed the handle in place and then machine sewed along the edges.

Month three of Jane

Here are my latest Jane blocks. Three of the five blocks are purple this month as indicated in my plan for the quilt .. a rainbow scheme starting with green in the middle, followed by yellow, etc. I still love working with the Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs fabrics. You can use the large scale fabrics and pick sections to work with. The blocks seemed fussy to me this month, but maybe it was me! The reverse applique is the most trying. Hard to get the corners sewn without the raw edges poking out. I think I need most improvement in that area and will not doubt get the opportunity to do so in the next few years of my Jane Journey!

Bouquet WIP

I have finished the Bouquet Quilt. I used Kaffe Fassett Russian Rose for the binding. I am very happy with this quilt!

I machine sew my bindings. This is a modern quilt done by machine. My thinking is why stop using the machine when you are finishing the binding?

The binding was first sewn to the front of the quilt, then I stitched along the edge of the binding on the back of the quilt with my edge foot. I used a dark gray thread for the top thread and a tan thread in the bobbin, which is less visible on the top of the quilt. Sometimes I sew the binding to the back of the quilt and roll it to the front and sew along the edge on the front of the quilt.

From January 27, 2013:

Here is an update on the Bouquet Quilt. It has been so cold lately that I have been happy to stay in the house working on this quilt! I finished quilting it yesterday. All it needs now is the binding!

Posted January 20, 2013:

Yesterday in the mail I received 3 yards of new Kaffe Fassett fabric: ocher palm fan, blue field bouquet, and red suzani. I was a bit disappointed because the yard of field bouquet was not cut correctly. Whoever was cutting it just was not taking in the entire yard and seeing that it really is a panel and not regular yardage. If cut correctly you will get 12 bouquet blocks. Four of the blocks in my yard had been clipped off on one end, with just a sliver of four more at the other end of the yard.

What to do about this? Lemonade from Lemons. I do have 12 blocks, but four of them are different with wider borders than the other 8 blocks. I think this will make the quilt more interesting!

If the fabric had been cut correctly I would have said “how pretty” and added it to my stash … but I had to spring into immediate action to save this fabric!

Here are photos of some of the blocks. The sashing will be a gray Moda fabric which will add a rich tone to this quilt.