Jane Sassaman quilt artist, fabric designer, author and teacher

Friday I spent the whole day on the pretty set of Quilting Arts TV. My hostess Susan Brubaker Knapp and the crew made it comfortable and friendly. I was so impressed with Susan… with just a week into a new job and she seemed like an old pro. She had to change her wardrobe for almost every shoot, since they were shooting out of sequence. It was a miracle she could keep it all straight!

I spent the rest of the weekend with family in Cleveland, a rare treat. On Saturday afternoon it started to rain and within a few hours there were 6″ of heavy wet SNOW! This was the last thing I expected, but I’m glad I wore my winter coat!

There is a quilt hanging in the background of the picture above. This is a new quilt made with the Sweet Lady Jane fabrics. I call it the Watermelon Quilt. As things are still very beige here I thought this bit of color would make us all happy.

This quilt is based on a 12″ finished block with a little applique added to jazz it up.

Here is the block which is a large traditional fan design.  The large quarter circle applique actually acts as a band-aide to hold the fan and the background together, so there isn’t any seam allowance needed between those pieces. They simply butt together and the joint is covered by the appliqued shapes. But there does need to be seam allowance on the sides of the block so it can be pieced to its neighbor. The smaller appliqued whole circles where added after the blocks were sewn together.

Below are the appliqued shapes. Be sure to add the extra quarter inch to both ends of the large quarter circle band-aide. I used iron interfacing for the base shapes (just as you would use freezer paper in traditional applique, but in this case the interfacing stays inside the shape and helps to stabilize it). The edges are turned for a nice clean look and attached with a heavy blanket stitch.

Then it was beautifully quilted by Pam McIntyre at Quilting Makes the Quilt in Gainesville, Florida. This will be a fun piece to display in the summer season and it is a nice lap size quilt, too. Below are the Sweet Lady Jane fabrics that make up this pattern.

Yardage =1/4 yard  yellow brocade, 3/4 yard of solid red and a half yard of all the others.

PS… don’t forget to vote for your favorite designer BERNINA 350 Special Edition! The more you vote, the better chance of winning one of your own!

Well, my flight to Cleveland was cancelled today and my new flight isn’t until tonight! Thank goodness, there is no lecture scheduled for tonight! I am going to tape some segments for Quilting Arts TV tomorrow, so hopefully the new flight will go as planned.

So that means I have a chance to do a few things in the studio that would have remained undone until next week, including this blog post.

It is a wonderfully dark and dreary day, such a sharp contrast to the sparkling sunshine the past couple days. So I thought I would show you this new kaleidoscope quilt made with some surprisingly subtle Sassaman fabrics… subtle colors, not pattern.

This top is made with half square triangles, except the border. The long side of the triangle is 11″ finished. So the square in the middle is also 11″ finished. From these dimensions you should easily be able to diagram the pattern, especially if you have read Patchwork Sassaman Style.

There are only 2 Sweet Lady Jane fabrics used, Daisy Chain and Fuchsia in the Periwinkle colorway.

PS… have you been voting for your favorite BERNINA Faceplate everyday? The more you vote the greater chance of winning one of your own! Wouldn’t that be wonderful!!