Dear Jane

It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you focus on one thing. I decided to focus on Dear Jane. Rows A and B needed attaching to the main body. Twenty five blocks needed to be made, finished and attached. That was completed and Rows A through J are finished. All the blocks are hand quilted, bound and sewn into the quilt.

There are three more rows to make before I start on the outside triangles.

Being focused, I continued on and pieced all thirteen blocks of row K.

My focus will be on something else now. These blocks will be worked on at sit and sews unless I decide to focus on Dear Jane later on. Focusing once a month on something is enough.

I am still following the 21 day sewing room declutter. Day 1 – remove garbage. That was easy. Empty the waste basket and sweep the floor. The only problem with that is it has to be done on a daily basis.

Day 2 Return items. That was done. Again, it has to be done on a daily basis. Put things where they belong when you are done with them.

Day 3 – magazines. I thought that was going to be an easy one. I keep my magazines in a Shaker bucket. It was overflowing.

It wouldn’t take long to clean it out. I found that I hadn’t read a lot of the magazines and had to stop and read them. It is going to take forever. A new magazine came yesterday. There are recipe, quilting and housekeeping magazines. All have to be looked at before they go to a new home. In order to continue on with the 21 day declutter, I decided to work on this project for 30 minutes a day. It will be done sometime.

Day 4 – books Fortunately, I had already alphabetized by author all of my books. The new ones haven’t been listed in the computer. I’ll do that after I finish the 30 minute purge of the magazine. Eventually both will be done.

Day 5 – Pattern pile. This will take more than one day. Most of my patterns are in a file or a note book. Sometime this weekend, I can gather them all together. Then I can divide them into three piles. Ones that I have made and want to keep, ones that I will make, and ones that I will never make along with the ones that I have made and will never make again. There are a lot of patterns that I just had to have and never made. There are probably patterns lurking in places that I will find later after I think that this is finished.

The March Mini quilt is ready to quilt. I saw this quilt on Love of Quilting show 3113. It is interesting because it is made with sixteen blocks that are alike. The block uses two cats cradle blocks and two double half square triangle blocks. The smallest cats cradle block on the cats cradle ruler is 1 1/2″ square. The half square triangles were easy to oversize and trim down. The blocks are 3″ finished. The nine patches on the border were made with 1″ strips. The finished size of the white inner border width is the difference between the length of the nine patch border and the length of the main quilt divided by two.

The “Ugly Quilt” is staring at me every time I open the closet door. It’s telling me to finish it and move it on. It’s basted and partially quilted. There is a story about how this quilt got it’s name. When this quilt is finished, I’ll tell you all about it.

Have a great day and happy quilting.