Category: Dear Jane

I have two more blocks done for my Dear Jane quilt. I actually made A-3 some time ago. I like it, but it isn’t my best job in applique. Done is done though!

A-3

A-12 was a pretty complicated block to make. It is labeled as an ‘intermediate’ block. The pieces on this are tiny. Some of those triangles finished at just barely over a 1/4 of an inch!

One thing I learned on this block is that making two of each block is a wonderful thing and a very crazy thing. The purple block was made first and probably took me a good two hours to make. After I finished I really really didn’t want to make another! I waited until the next day and thought on some of the mistakes I made, then started in on the blue and orange one. You can’t really tell from the front, but the seams are way better on the second one.

A-12

With every Dear Jane block I make, I learn something new about sewing and precision quilting. I also learn to let the little imperfections go because sometimes finished is way better than perfect.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

It has been a while since I worked on some blocks for my Dear Jane quilt. This quilt will be an ongoing project for quite a while because I just have so many other quilts I want to do too. I am okay with that though.

Here are the two blocks I finished recently:

B-13

C-12

These two were fairly easy to make. I just used the rotary cutting instructions from the Dear Jane software. B-13 was a snap to put together, but while piecing C-12 I discovered something about my sewing machine. My machine was not sewing a true 1/4 inch seam! I am not sure why it was off, but it was easy to tell from the test block I made for Rainbow Jane (in green in the picture), that when my pieces were ironed open, they were too big. I tried squaring up, but once that block is put in the quilt, my pieces will be way off. So before going on to the piece for my blue and orange Jane, I used a ruler to mark the proper 1/4 inch from my needle and put down blue painter’s tape as a guide. The second block went off without a hitch and turned out nearly perfect in my humble opinion!

I knew I would learn a lot from Jane, but finally marking my true 1/4 inch line will make all my quilts better! I guess when you are sewing pieces that will end up just a half inch wide in the end, precision is key. This block taught me A LOT about precision, something I never could really do before.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel