Margo wrote:
I will NOT do another project! I can't! I don't have the time or the money! DH Mike says if we plan and save and work our butts off, we might be able to make it to Houston THIS year!!!!!!!!!!!!! How's that for a goal?

Hi Eileen! I just found a work sheet from another site. It had started in January of last year but they were doing 3 or 4 blocks a week! Luckily the first week in January only lists 3 blocks and I had done two of them in the past. The one I have to do is I-9. It looks like a doosie! Might pp it! Will sit down to night and study it!

Margo, OMG....those civil war blocks are awesome!!!! Might have to do it....those are the colors I just love! So you just go to the link every week and there will be a new block? how do you get the pattern for that block? Margo you are never going to get rid of me!

Eileen, I just joined a few days ago and have been bugging Margo ever since for help like the signature, etc. She has been a real trooper! Margo may be ignoring me soon!

If anyone is interested in Civil War quilts and stories of blocks you might want to work along with Barbara Brackman's 2011 project here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/

Hi Elizabeth,
I like your siggie!! Plus, it's nice to know your real name.

Five blocks!! I'll be lucky to do one. :shock: :shock: I'm a member of the Dear Jane list that Brenda Papadakis started. You can get to it from the DJ website. They do a block of the week, called a BOW. I'm going to participate in that. It's about my speed right now.

Hi! I do have the book, rulers, etc. but not the cd. I also have the Dear Hannah book...lol I am going to do most of mine by hand too...including reverse applique. I didn't know if we were going to start from the beginning and say we need to have this many blocks done by the end of the month... There were five of us in a Bee in San Antonio that did an exchange. We all did five of the same block and everyone had a different block to chose from then we exchanged the blocks every so often. Hope that doesn't sound confusing. For an example...we each did five of one different and then we ended up with 5 different blocks when we did the exchange. It was fun! I know that wouldn't be practical here on the website. There is a website that the person that did the Dear Jane made a list of all the blocks and what blocks were to be finished by a certain time frame.

I'm planning on using paper piecing by machine where I can. Blinky, Amazon has used copies or you can get it new.

Yes, welcome, Blinky! Do you have the Dear Jane book by Brenda Papdakis? You'll need that for the patterns. Some people also have bought the version with the CD, which allows you to print out the patterns. And you'll want to check out the Dear Jane website: http://www.dearjane.com/
Other than that, I think everyone I know is approaching it differently. I'm hoping to do most of mine by hand, so I've been looking at the patterns and I plan to start with those I think are easiest.

So how do we start??

Blinky,
Welcome to this motley crew!! One way or another, we'll keep each other in line. I want to do this quilt!

Yes....I would be interested! I might have about 20 blocks done. But haven't touched it in a couple of years. Good way to get some more done!

Hi Eileen,
Your idea is great and will look good. 2 color blocks along with scrappy blocks can be a nice design. Some of my Dear Jane blocks are more than one color with the same light background that I am using for all of the blocks. The same background color will tie it all together. Go for it!!

I have a bit of a dilemma here. I have several blocks already done with blue and muslin. I've decided I don't want it to just be a 2 color quilt-I want it to be scrappy! I don't have to start over, do I : As long as the blues aren't side by side I should be okay, right? I realize it should be a no brainer but for some reason, it's making me crazy :shock: :shock:

Robin, I've seen this done on DJ and in groups of blocks, and the lady used the regular sashing for her edges. Maybe I'm thinking it will be simpler than it looked, but you couldn't tell on the front that it was a PAYG quilt. Maybe I'll cheat and join 4 plain blocks and just try it first.

eileenkny wrote:
Yes, I was thinking about this. There is sashing, which is fine for most quilt as you go techniques, but you're right, calculating how to make that work when quilting the blocks in groups instead of individually will require some mental gymnastics, I think More than I'm capable of today, but then it won't be an issue for me for a while yet. So, to paraphrase Scarlett O'Hara, that's a problem for another day ...