Thread: Judy Niemeyer VS Jacqueline de Jonge

I have done both, and am currently quilting a deJong that I recently completed. Love them both and will have to say that the Niemeyer directions are probably easier to follow. In the pattern "Celtic Wave" that I did she recommended cutting everything and bagging the strips, etc before starting to sew. I did NOT do that and do not think it is wise to do so because every little bit..no matter how careful we are...can cause the arc to be just enough different that adjustment is necessary when putting it all together. My De Jong pattern that I am working on now is the "Simply Red" which is an older one of hers. I don't know whether she has improved in her instructions, but I did have to convert everything from the metric system, and then some of her instructions had to be really read and reread to understand and interpret. You can go to my gallery and see the two that I have done. One is a Niemeyer bedsize that did make it into the Paducah AQS Show in 2013 and the other is a de Jong wall hanging that I made several years ago. Again, I do not recommend cutting everything up before starting. Any error and the possibility of needing to recut...scares me half to death. What if you have no more fabric??

Originally Posted by SuziSew

Thanks Sneed! Both are beautiful! and I appreciate the suggestion about the pre-cutting...I've wondered about that myself! So wait to cut, read, re-read, calculate and cross my fingers!

Since you're with a pp group you guys no doubt all keep up with tips on this method. After crossing your fingers be sure to choose a thread that is no heavier than a 50 weight...I am now using an 80wt on wall hangings. And then iron, iron, iron. I have a small ironing pad next to my machine with one of the little clover irons and use it with each fabric turn. Good luck and have fun!

I would consider myself a less than experienced quilter, a bit over two years of sewing and a dominant hand with fingertips missing, so if I can do either...in this case both, almost anyone can. There are some obvious differences...Niemeyer is usually more geometric and less curvilinear ( until recently) and DeJonge's usually have a vast amount of circles and tight arcs that require a lot of matching. If you have done one of Judy's then you get just how critical it is to keep things organized, not confusing sew lines and a host of other more logical things you forget are essential...until you try of one their respective projects. They both have mistakes and have posted corrections that you likely need to hunt down, some older ones of JDJ lack papers, and Judy's have more specific directions but they can be a bit unclear at times...so pluses and minuses for both of them. I recently chose a Jacqueline DeJonge pattern called Curling Colours: it had a quadzillion triangular pieces, a ton of intersecting curves, made it into a king size and I still slogged through it...and you know how guys are about directions.

Sidebar: about two-thirds through this quilt top I found a method that uses freezer paper ...that is frequently referred to as "flip and sew" and that saved me from tearing away all those pesky pieces of paper. You can convert this technique to employ the papers provided and a re-positional glue stick from an office supply store. I recently posted all the advantages of this method on this board elsewhere... if this is of interest? I also started to employ glue basting, clipping curves and a bunch of cool techniques that I learned from a Craftsy course...that you more experienced quilters likely know, but that also improved my final product.

So the bottom line? They both are not a cake walk, you have to think and not get ahead of yourself...but they each have a distinctive look to their work and that is what either draws us to one or the other...or in my case...both. If you flip a coin you will likely be happy with the results with either of them and if you need more information to fill in the blanks any further...you can drop me a private message, but of you belong to a group that does paper piecing you are likely light years ahead of me.

I have done both . Niemeyer patterns have much better directions. DeJonge , if you get an old pattern they do not contain the papers. English is not DeJonges native language and she uses an interpreter for the directions in English. The DeJonge patterns directions have gotten better over the years , but the older patterns have not been adjusted or corrected.

Both have stunning patterns and are not for the faint of heart. Do look at the curves , deep curves are not easy to get perfect especially if its your first one of this type.

Last year DeJonge had a booth at the International Quilt show Chicago.... and her brother ( it think) was there , he explained they have worked through many of the issues we have had with her patterns. Her patterns now contain the papers , but older ones without are still in stores and in some online retailers. So before purchasing be absolutely sure it has the papers, as the patterns are not easily copied or transferred since they use a paper size available in Europe.