Simply Woven Quilt Top is assembled.

My least favorite thing about quilting is "pressing the seams open", but some quilts require it.  This quilt has too many little seams and joins to have a chance of being flat, if the seams are not pressed open.  I really like the way this quilt top turned out.

A close up.

And a shot from the back shows all that tedious pressing; but I know it will make it a lot easier on the Janelle, my long-arm quilter.

Making the quilt back will have to wait until later in the week.  Tomorrow morning I have to clean the house, teach Tai Chi in the afternoon and in the evening our card-playing group is coming over.

Wednesday is the monthly Parkinson's Support Group, and I'll lead Tai Chi.  Plus I've got some errands to do.  Life gets in the way of quilting all too frequently.

May your bobbins always be full,

One more block and some progress.

This is the Woven block I made out of scraps.  It's my favorite of the 25 blocks I've made.  If I made another quilt using this block, I think I'll make all the blocks scrappy.  The scrappiness is subtle, and I like that, too.

Today, I managed to stitch all the rows together.  For my layout I tried to keep it scrappy by twisting the blocks left-right and up and down.  There's an afternoon breeze happening, so  I anchored the bottoms with more clothespins.

Frisco is doing really well, today.  He's mostly resting and he's a little grumpy.

I'm going to wait to stitch the rows together.

Ben's always close by.  He's a really good little guy.  His nickname is Ben Rivers, because he doesn't do the "normal" marking thing when we go for a walk.  He lets it all out at once, like a river.

May your bobbins always be full,

Slow but Sure Progress

I've been making steady, if slow progress on piecing the Simply Woven blocks.  I ended up with 24 blocks.  I've been playing with them on the dining room table; I'm trying to end up with a balanced layout.  I'm really not satisfied with either a 4 x 5 or 4 x 6 layouts.  I think I'll make one more block out of scraps; so I'll have a 5 x 5 layout and the quilt to will be about 60" square.

In other news, 6 weeks ago we adopted two dogs.  They needed homes and we needed dogs.  This week we took them to the groomers, and on the way home, Frisco, above, managed to lower the rear window and jump out.  He landed under the car and was run over!  Frisco got up on his own, walked to the sidewalk and waited for Bob.  Bob took him straight to the vets office, and he had surgery this morning.  He's home now and doing great.  He was hurt much less than we imagined, which is a relief.

Here is a photo of both dogs.  Frisco is 7 years old and a large Cocker, we're calling him an American Cocker Spaniel mix.  Ben is only one years old, and 10 pounds.  He's a terrier mix; his coloring is like a Cairn Terrier, but he's much smaller than any Cairn we've ever had.  The dogs get along great, which is great for us.

If you haven't entered the giveaway, you still have more time.  Go here to enter.

May your bobbins always be full,

Great Service, a Giveway and a QAL

I recently purchased a FQ bundle of Modern Solids 2 by In The Beginning fabrics.  For this purchase I tried a "new to me" fabric shop in Corvallis, OR, Winter Creek Cloth.  I'm blogging about this because I was so impressed with their service.  It seemed I'd just clicked to complete the sale, and the fabric was here.  I know that's an exaggeration, but they were really fast.  Because of that I'll be using them again, and I want to recommend them to my readers, too.

This week, I contacted Dana at Winter Creek Cloth to tell her that I was going to do this blog post about them; and I asked if they would like to do a giveaway or offer a discount code to my readers.  The answer was YES, to both!  Plus I got to choose the giveaway. 

I chose a Fat Quarter Bundle of Blueprint Basics by Valori Wells for Robert Kaufman.  The line is so new, it's not in the shop, yet!  But click thru to the Robert Kaufman site to see the line.  The winner will receive 9 FQs of Blueprint Basics.  I just love this line.  If you're interested in winning, you have five chances to win.

1. Like Janice Elaine Sews on Facebook, and come back and leave a comment telling me that you did.
2. Like Winter Creek Cloth on Facebook, and come back and leave a comment telling me that you did.
3. Visit Winter Creek Cloth's website, and come back and leave a comment telling me which New Arrival or Coming Soon item strikes your fancy.
4. Sign up for their Newsletter, and come back and tell me that you did. 
5. Leave a comment on this post telling me what you would make with the FQ bundle of Blueprint Basics.

If you want to order some Blueprint Basics for yourself, or any other goodies from Winter Creek Cloth, here's a special 10% off discount code:  JANSQUILTS.

Now, I'll tell you what I'm going to do with the FQ bundle of Modern Solids 2 that started all this.  I'm a individual member of the MQG.  There's no group around where I live; but I keep tabs on a couple of groups via their blogs or on FB.  The San Diego MQG is having a SDMQG Vintage Quilt Revival QAL, post, FB and flickr, and I decided to join up, and use this FQ bundle.  You should check it out, maybe you'll want to join up, too.

The winner will be selected by my favorite Random Number Generator, Bob, and announced on July 25.

Bob, on the left.

May your bobbins always be full,

Progress Report on the Simply Woven Quilt Top

I'm making good progress on my latest project, the Simply Woven Quilt Top.  So far, I've added four of the stripes by cutting, joining and pressing my seams open.  There are two more stripes to be added in, then I'll be able to join all the blocks together, after a bit of "trueing-up"; a necessity with this many pieces in a block.

I wanted to point out that if you comment on my blogs and you don't hear back from me, you are most likely a No-Reply Blogger.  It's frustrating to a small blogger like myself, not to be able to interact with you, if you've been gracious enough to leave a comment.  If you do a google search of  "no-reply" blogger, you'll find lots of people willing to tell you how to fix this.  I do want to mention that not everyone uses the Blogger platform for their blogs; the other free platforms that I'm aware of are Wordpress and Typepad.   One good solution is to have an account with all the the blogging platforms, the account is free; that way it's easy to leave comments on all three types of blogs.  Here's hoping you become a Reply Blogger, if you aren't.

Now, I'm going to slash and add stripes to all 25 Simply Woven Blocks.

May your bobbins always be full,

Quilt Prices

Below is an etsy convo, titled "quilt prices", I received last night.

Hi I was wondering if you actually sell the quilts you list this high. As well as I wanted to know the quality of them. Like do you make these yourself?

I was surprised at the tone of the convo.  To me it seemed a tad hostile/negative.  I did reply, in what I hope was a friendly/positive manner.

Hi Hannah, Yours is an unusual question. Yes, I do make these myself, and yes, I do sell them at the listed prices. I only use quilting quality 100% cotton fabric. Most of my commission customers enjoy following my blog, www.jansquilts.com. I hope this answers your question.

I haven't heard back from this gal, so I hope she's satisfied.  Every post should have photos; these quilts now live happily in North Carolina.

May your bobbins always be full,

Workin' on the Chain (Piecing) Gang

I'm making progress on the Simply Woven quilt.  I've sewn things together, cut them in two, then joined them together, again.  I'm liking the way these blocks are looking, so far.  Now, I'm off to make more cuts and joins.  Sounds like carpentry instead of quilting, when I write it that way.

Today's my birthday, I'm 70.  I've been celebrating for one week, by not cooking.  Today is going to be an ordinary Tuesday, with some sewing and in the afternoon I teach my Tai Chi class.  Since I teach on a voluntary basis, I never cook on Tuesdays or Thursdays, that's my reward.  Tonight we'll play cards with our regular group, so it really is an ordinary day.

May your bobbins always be full,