Rainbow Jane Flimsy!!!!

You guys!!!  Oh my gosh, how did I forget to post this here?!

I burrowed into my assembly work all last week and got my Rainbow Dear Jane fully assembled Tuesday night!

I put in cornerstones on this one - went through all the colors I'd received for the blocks and found the one of each color that I liked best. Used that one for all the stones in each radiating color band. I think you can get the idea here:

Regarding earlier thoughts of quilting this in large sections, then joining them - SCRATCH THAT IDEA~!  There are far too many precision points in small measure to match up to ever get it to line up perfectly after quilting. You'd have waves that will never block out completely, or mismatched lines. Besides the whole challenge of the serious thicknesses that fight with the foot as you're sewing.

As you're assembling your Babies, you'll find that tiny 1/2" sashing places many thick, thick seam-allowance stretches that ride so close to the foot that it's often difficult to keep the edges perfectly lined up. I found pinning like this to be super helpful, because on most blocks, that top Baby likes to slide away from the foot with a strong pull:

I thought about putting on the zipper foot to see if that helped, but the sashing is so narrow that you need a really perfect 1/4" seam. I can't get that without using this particular foot.

GO SLOW. And it also helped to provide support/tension from 3 angles: front and side with my left hand, from the back with my right hand reaching through the machine's throat (absent here to do camera duty):

I have other things that require attention, and after the intensity of assembling her, I do need a Jane break. But I can't wait to give her some more attention next month!!  I plan on marking the scallops and the quilting I want in the blue cones, then I can pin-baste her. I think I will just SID the inside babies, quilt the background cones/scallops, and bind her. I do want quilting in the individual squares, but I'll leave that for "The Second Stage" at some further point in time. Maybe then I'll have an easier machine to heft a VERY HEAVY 85" quilt through.  :)   Because this flimsy is one heavy sucker!!!  

I can't hang it in my Quilting Needed Closet - 

It'll just fall off the hanger. So it sits on top of my treasured quilts armoir stack.

No fears of forgetting her quilting, though! After two years of working on her, she's a very good friend, indeed.

P.S. -  Men. . .  ::shaking my head::  Mr. Caulkins: "This is what it would look like if a quilt farted:"

My Jane Quilt on Exhibit

Here is my finished Modern Jane quilt. I taught a Dear Jane club and made this - working along side my students. The quilt was constructed using a mix of batiks and modern prints.
I was incredibly humbled and honored that Brenda Papadakis asked me to submit this quilt as part of the Celebration of Jane Stickle Exhibit. The (150th anniversary)exhibit took place at the Vermont Quilt Festival the end of June.

Above is a picture of Brenda giving a lecture by my quilt at the exhibit.

The experience and women I've met on this journey have been so wonderful. I am so grateful to Brenda for her years of dedication in preserving this great American Treasure!

I'm still working on my Civil war and 1930's Jane quilts. I will be starting up another Dear Jane club this fall so I'm hopeful to have these 2 Jane quilts completed by the end of next year.

Jane's Cushions.

Finally I have managed to find a couple of zippers in the colours I wanted to make the first round of DJ blocks I made, into a couple of cushions.

It  was harder finding the zippers that what it was to make the cushions. The fronts hung for a months on my coat hanger on the wall, in my sewing room. Eventually found the zippers in a quilting shop.

This cushion I gave to my daughter-in-law as like me Tamara is a cushion freak.

This cushion I have kept for myself.