Friday, March 18, 2011

Finished! Last two rows of Jane

I've done it! Here are the last two rows of Jane...row Land Row M!
Some thoughts on my Jane experience...one of the reasons that I think this quilt is so fascinating is Jane Stickle's use of "negative space". In many of the blocks, she reversed the usual placement of the design fabric and the background fabric. I found thinking this way -about negative space- was very helpful in figuring out how to sew a block.

I know I haven't written much about the process I used so I thought I'd finish up the posts on the Jane rows with a "process report". The seventh block in row M was a wonderful chance to use negative space. I decided right away that applique was the easier way to go but applique what? the pink design fabric or the white background fabric. Once I looked at the block that way-it definitely made sense to applique the white fabric. So I started with a 5" x 5" square of my pink fabric and basted on the four white "leaf" shapes.

You can see that I like to needleturn with a drawn line. How did I position the pieces? I traced the design from the book onto an overlay (just tracing paper) and positioned the pieces under the overlay and basted them. Next photo-leaf pieces appliqued.
Next I traced the outer shape of the white background fabric onto a 5" x 5" piece of freezer paper (with the 1/4" seam allowance marked to help with placement over the block in the book), cut out the middle, ironed it to a 5" x 5" piece of white fabric, drew my sewing line...
and here you can see the white fabric with the center cut out-leaving a seam allowance and basted over the pink square.
Here's the block with all the white fabric appliqued and only the 4 pink leaves left to do.
How easy was that! Only 5 white pieces to applique, no tiny points to try to stuff the seam allowance under which I would have had had I appliqued the pink fabric!

Hope this was interesting and maybe even helpful. If you're doing a Jane quilt-think negative space! I've started looking at the triangles and I've already spotted several where I can use this approach.

10 comments:

Barb said...

Wow...love your Dear Jane so far and well...after seeing what you had to do with that one block, I am a fearing to try.

beth said...

Your Dear Jane is going to be GREAT! Thanks for the insights!

Paulette said...

Brilliant use of negative space! Congrats on finishing the blocks!

Roslyn said...

It's lovely Miri, I admire yours so, because I will never make one!

Margaret said...

That's great! Will you be quilting it by hand?

Susan said...

very interesting, Miri, I can see why you loved working on this one, these blocks are challenging and your work is wonderful. Are you doing the triangle blocks next?

Julia said...

It's lovely Miri,
I know how hard some blocks can be...
It's a great feeling to get this far..
Are you going to do the tri's around the border?

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

I can not believe how fast you are whipping this complicated quilt together - I know having made 2 of them how much time they take and complicated it can be -- I'm proud of you girlfriend :)
Karen
http://karensquilting.com/blog/

Retrogirl said...

Congrats on finishing the blocks!!

Patty said...

I don't know how to explain it but this would not usually be the type of quilt I would like -- maybe I am too anal and like blocks to all be the same -- but I LOVE these. I can't wait to see it all finished.