Valentine Love

Remember the banner from my mother's birthday party, well the banner has morphed from my mom's birthday party, to Christmas and on to Valentine's Day!  I haven't gotten tired of it yet and whether I am having a party or not....it makes me smile when I walk past the doorway!

Here are some of the valentine hankies I found in my "hoard" of hankies.

This is a pale pink dotted Swiss hankie....very cute.  Not too practical for a hankie I  would say.

My mom taught school for several years and hankies were one of the teacher gifts of choice at that time.  Then I have bought a box or two at auctions and all my grandma's had nice collections as well.  So let's just say I might have a vintage suitcase full of hankies....not saying I do....but it could be possible.

As I was pulling ones for the Christmas banner, I notice all the Valentine ones....so cute!  So I must do a Valentine's banner too!

I love the edges on many of them....so fun!

Sweet designs....

Look at those corners....this might be one of my favorites!

Fun little border print with tiny scallop edges.

This one is embroidered with my Great-grandma's name....with a lovely crocheted edge, which I think she would have done.  It is not in good condition....so I am sure it was well used.

Little hearts all around and tiny scallop heart border.

 Don't you just love these little pieces of sweetness!

 Cute border prints!

Love the edging on this one too....way too cute!

Happy Valentine's......sorry for the glare....too many windows in my dining room!  I always struggle taking pictures in there.

 Be My Valentine banner .....isn't that cute!  I sewed the paper letters on a piece of rick rack and finished the loops on each end with red buttons.

We had a couple visitors last weekend for Sam's 8th birthday.  He invited his sister, Cora, to share his sleepover.  The kids love to make designs with Perler beads.  You can get them at the local craft store, I even scored a bunch of them at Goodwill one time.  :)

We played Valentine Bingo and I know two kids that won some prizes....what's not to like about that?

Happy 8th Birthday, Samuel!

Isn't this just a hoot....I took this picture last year of some of the tribe and I got some free $$ from Shutterfly....so I dressed this pic up in Photoshop Elements and had it made into a puzzle.  To say it is stinkin' cute....... is an understatement.  The grands will love doing it!

Happy Valentine's Day to my Sweetie Pie.....we're off to do something fun today!

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Dear Jane & Miracle Worker Status

In case you want some mood music happening!

My sewing area has looked like this for months now.  I have been somewhat quiet on my blog for a couple reasons.  My migraines continue to be a constant source of interruption to my life.  Do you know that commercial....Do you have a migraine life?  YES.....ick!   And the other reason is I have had my head down and nose to the sewing machine working on my Dear Jane quilt.  So when I feel good, I haven't wanted to spend extra time on the computer, even though I do enjoy blogging.  It is like a vacuum cleaning on your time.  

I am going to share a couple ways that I came up in cutting my fabric as I sewed each block.  This would work well if you are doing a sampler type quilt or any piece where you are doing many different blocks and not a quilt where all the blocks are the same.  For starters, I cut my background fabric which happened to be muslin into strips all different widths....like 1", 1.25", 1.5", 1.75", 2", etc.  When I got to the bigger sizes 3"+ I cut every .5" at that point.  These became my working strips.

You can see them at the top left in a pile.  In front of them you can see a pile of small pieces and strips.  These are the scraps as I trim off the excess while foundation piecing.  I go to that fabric first when I need to cover a small patch and if I don't have something big enough, then I measure my patch as they are printed on vellum....shown in the center.  Whatever that measurement is....... is the strip I pull from my strip pile.  Then I personally use the Carol Doak method of foundation piecing using a postcard and an add 1/4" ruler or on this project I used an add a 1/8" ruler a lot.  Doing it this way, eliminates waste of fabric.....the pieces I threw away were literally crumbs and on a project this big.....it makes a difference on yardage.

So yesterday was a huge day in Dear Jane world around here, I finished my last triangle in the morning, in the afternoon I added the adjustment strips that needed to be added before adding the triangle border.  I spent the evening after the Silver Fox left for work, & added the triangle borders.  I must say...... I sat in my chair and just stared at it for quite awhile before going to bed last night.  

 I started this baby in 1998.  Now don't think I have worked on this continuously....there have been many times it has been in it's drawer waiting for my return!

I need to embroider my signature and I am going to include some names of our relatives that have fought in the Civil War as well.  It will also have a scalloped edge all the way around.  I added the strips around the outside for that today.  I won't work on that part until I have the center quilted.

 My plan is to complete it during the years of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War that is happening right now.

So I do have until 2015......hopefully it will be done before then!

Dear Jane Love!