PROGRESS ON 'DEAR JEANNE'

I've finally made some progress on my 'Dear Jeanne' quilt.  Below is the left half of the quilt put together.

When completed, there will be 64 blocks.  I've made about 50 different blocks, but discarded all but these 32.

Here are three of my favorites from this week:

 

In order to keep track of the blocks, I've listed them with photos on a separate page of this blog.  Click on 'Dear Jeanne Blocks' on the tab above under the heading.

This quilt has certainly been a trial and error project.  I think I have tried about five different fabrics for the borders, but have now settled on these.  Even through the trials, I have really enjoyed working on it as it has challenged my brain sizing the patterns all to 5" blocks and picking the fabrics.

I'm taking the weekend off from playing with 'Dear Jeanne' to go on a road trip to Denver to quilt shop hop and check out the antique stores.  One of our stops will be Harriet Hargraves' store (click here to go to her website)  -- she always has wonderful fabrics and great samples.
Back to 'Dear Jeanne' next week.

I'm joining the following:
A Quilted Passion for Whoomp There It is! Saturday
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPs Be Gone Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

THROWBACK THURSDAY (CRAZY FRIENDS)

Colorado Quilting Council is well known nationally for sponsoring quilting symposiums dating back to 1982.  They always furnish innovative and well-known quilters as teachers for the offered classes.  I attended the first symposium in 1982, and it was a mind-blowing experience with such teachers as Jinny Beyer, Chris Wolf Edmonds, Jeffrey Gutcheon, Roberta Horton to name a few.  This was before we had access to the internet's learning opportunities, and this was a BIG deal.

Then in the mid-1980s, I went to Houston's quilt festival a couple of times and to other conferences in neighboring states meeting teachers and making friends.

So by the time the Colorado 1988 symposium rolled around, I was a seasoned quilt festival attendee.  It was a time to meet up with old friends and have fun in addition to sharpening my quilting skills. 

At the closing banquet of the 1988 event, Quilter's Newsletter Magazine gave away samples of their Rainbow fabrics -- one of the first collections of solids offered.  I was fortunate enough to win a large stack of squares.  Since I had always been interested in signature quilts, I had friends and teachers sign the fabric.

I held onto those signatures until 1998, when I was writing a book on signature quilts.  I decided then it was time to do something with these treasures, and made this quilt using a crazy quilt format naming it "Crazy Friends".  Among the noted signatures are:

Doreen Speckmann - always had a new idea and offered fun classes.  Catherine Anthony - a pioneer quilt store owner in Texas and the mother of famous quilter, Libby Lehman.

Blanche Young - another innovative technician with her daughter, and a master of the multi-fabric quilt.  I learned so much in her classes.

Vivian Ritter - a longtime editor at Quilter's Newsletter Magazine,  and mainly responsible for the 
 publishing of my quilts in QNM.

Harriet Hargrave -- the pioneer behind the current machine quilting movement.

These are just a few of the wonderful signatures of friends and teachers on this little quilt that I treasure.

I'm joining the following:
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quarter Inch from the Edge for Throwback Thursday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday
A Quilted Passion for Whoomp There It Is! Saturday
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday