Dear Jane Quilting

I have finally started hand quilting my DJ Quilt.  This is my second one to finish, the first I machine quilted a very simple cross hatch pattern with a little bit of design on the triangles.  With this one I am hand quilting and using a different pattern for each block.  I noticed in close up pictures of Jane Stickle's quilt, that is the way it is quilted.  I read somewhere that 3 or 4 friends helped her do the quilting and I have told my friends I would let them quilt some on mine - but got no takers.  I had a long arm quilter baste it together for me - so much easier (and better basting) than me trying to do it myself.

I am not using sashing in connecting the blocks, but rather sewing a border on each block and then trimming it to 5 1/2" square, which seems to me to be the way Jane Stickle did hers.  She was one smart lady if you ask me, because if the blocks do not come out exactly right - you add the border then square them up - I do love this process.

I am enjoying the quilting but its going to take me longer to quilt it than it did to make the top - but hey, I am in no hurry.  Below are pictures of some of the blocks I have quilted.

And here's a picture of what is next in my hoop.   I started with the center block, and am working in circles around that one.  Thought I would get the ones in the center first as they can be the hardest since you have so much bulk to work with...with each round it gets a little closer to the quilt edge and easier to manage.  This quilt is a little harder to quilt in that the blocks being so small and having so many pieces, there is a lot of seams to quilt through.  Wish I had thought to use a light weight batting - the quilt is also heavy.