Has anyone done a "dear Jane" quilt? I have seen some quilts and it looks like a lot of work, I do love applique but notoriously I start quilts and never finish them, so I am hesitant to spend $$ for the pattern book (to date I have 38 UFOs!! LOL)

Use the search bar and you will find TONS of lovely examples of Jane.

I have the book. I have the rulers. I have a dream. Now I just need the motivation. :D

It must because you don't have the DJ software. I'm sure that's what is holding you back. :mrgreen:

Wait. I have the all of those things. Except a finished DJ. :roll:

Bahahaaaaaa! :D

Oh, and fabric. Need some fabric.

Lots and lots of fabric.

We had a BOM here on the board last year, and several have been finished, with more still working on them.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/virtual...jsp?vsnum=1009

I made one block for my grandmother's Dear Jane wall-hanging. It came out lovely and looks like a lot of fun to make.

It strikes me as the sort of thing that you could make up a bunch of little kits to take along- just pick away at it by doing a block at a time, when you feel like it, if you think you'd get bogged down trying to do it all "in one sitting".

Oh, boy. I just checked out the quilts on this list. I feel a Dear Jane coming on... :D

HA..got you beat..I have the book, first edition, rulers, software, AND 425 fabrics...all in a tote since 1999! OH and a full bolt of ecology cloth for the background!

jaci, i think you win!

I'd wait if I were you. 38 ufo's need to be whittled down first. Dear Jane blocks take time.

I have experience with DJ. While I was working on DJ I learned that I do not like doing applique. My Baby Jane contains none of the applique blocks. So in fact I consider mine a partial DJ.. My daughter did this with me. It was her first ever quilt and she only does hand piecing and hand quilting. Her first quilt and she did the entire thing- all the blocks, triangles and quilting. Hers is complete, mine is a partial.

thanks, I think you are right, but I always say it's the thrill of the start more exciting than the satisfaction and sadness of the finish. I think I will put this project in my "one day" list.

did you see "chocolate Jane"?
I really want to change my fabric to chocolate brown now...instead of ecology cloth...boring...

Yes! It's beautiful!

We could hold hands, and begin gingerly together...

:lol:

These are amazing. I am not sure I have the motivation to do them them. Boy lots of pieces. All are very nice.

i can only drool when i see the "dear Janes"--never started one b/c i know i would never finish it & that would be such a crime--they are so beautiful!
wow, i didn't think anyone could beat my UFO collection, but i think you've DONE it! LOL

I have done about 24 blocks..but they were for a Spring Fling swap on the DJ group...all PP'ed from the software...they were super easy to do...it is the "A" stuff that does not excite me!

I don't mind the actual sewing of the "A" stuff so much as the preparation of the "A" stuff. ;-)

Lookit Jacquie...tryin' really hard not to cuss...

Heh. The "A" word.

:rotf:

Dear Jane before I die!!!! Funny I was just pm' ing tacomama about this!!!!

LOL!

I also had the patterns forever, I had purchased a notebook full of printed patterns, plus the softwear and the book from a lady that had given up on it. Everytime I looked at those teeny templates I freaked out and put it all away again. Then I noticed while playing with the software one day that many of the patterns could be printed out for paper piecing.... and that changed everything for me. So I designed a semi-Dear Jane with squares on point and used a pattern for the border that I had seen on Linda Franz's version of the DJ. There are 211 four and a half inch squares in my quilt, plus side triangles. I used every DJ pattern that I could in either paper piecing or machine applique and filled in with other paper piecing patterns from here and there. The quilt is about 8 ft square and will be put away as a wedding quilt for my baby grandson. :) So...perhaps if you don't make yourself be locked into replicating the DJ quilt exactly it would be more fun for you to try. You could also make a smaller quilt, make the blocks bigger....just about anything you want. I hope you will try it out, I can truthfully say I had a ball doing the blocks and putting them together in the block by block method allowed me to machine quilt each block intricately and that was fun too. Good luck!

It's beautiful! And those are two great borders.
Looking at it carefully, I can see some of the "new" blocks but they fit in perfectly.

I love that you didn't make an exact replica and truly made it your own.
I've also always thought DJ was a perfect candidate for QAYG.

I've also always thought DJ was a perfect candidate for QAYG.[/quote]

Thanks for the kind words! And I doubt the quilt would have ever gotten finished if I had had to face quilting it as a whole top! Quilting in little chunks is a lot easier and a whole lot more fun. :) I try to do every quilt that I can as QAYG as it is especially helpful for my arthritic hands not to have to handle an entire heavy quilt until the joining process and even then it doesn't get heavy until almost the whole quilt has be joined together.

I saw the actual quilt in Vermont. After doing it I can't believe how hard it had to be to do by hand. DJ quilt blocks that is as far as I got. When I got them done I didn't want to look at DJ again. Still sitting in a box.

Hi DJ friends, One day I started with a DJ applique block and couldn"t stop. Now I have finished 110 altogether and my autumn colors are finished. This is going to be my own Baby Jane. I have started a blue one for my GD but eventually she told me she would like a little bit of pink to it.I am not so very happy about it but will try to add as she likes. Moral of the story is finish your project and give away then. But thankfully she still loves it a lot and that encouraged me to finish it as she would like it. Which was your most difficult block to finish, mine was A2. Mind you I don't like machine piecing.

before reading any other replys...my first thought is DJ is the ultimate UFO!!! LOL

I have all that but I need the money.

I just finished the top of a baby jane. I did 60 blocks and decided to put it together. With the CD you make different size blocks and get paper piecing patterns and templates for appliques. I am thinking of doing another with my blocks 6 1/2 inch.

For a quick way to scan through lots of the examples of these quilts on the Board, you can go to the "Dear Jane" page
in the Gallery:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/user_page.jsp?upnum=3585

I've bookmarked the picture above from thebooklady to add to my collection there.

Yes I have finished a Dear Jane quilt. It is hanging on a wall in my family room. I did it by doing the block of the week. took me a long time, but I did finsih it. I hate hand work so all the applique is done by machine - iron on, raw edge.

I started a Dear Jane a couple of months ago and I'm afraid I've become a little obsessed with it. I had planned for it to be a long-time project fit in between other projects -- I even bought a special box for all the fabric and finished blocks. But I can't stop making those blocks! I'm sure learning a lot, though -- I'm a machine piecer, appliquer, and quilter and lots of this is done by hand and I'm doing hand QAYG, which is new for me, too.

I saw the original too. That's as far a I got!

I am not as far along as the rest of you...I just have the book and a dream of doing one someday.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Dear Jane (as I was) I found this info:
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The Dear Jane® History

Dear Jane®

In 1863 a woman named Jane A. Blakely Stickle completed a sampler quilt. Her name would be unremarkable today except for one thing that she did; she signed her amazing quilt.

"In War Time. 1863. Pieces. 5602. Jane A. Stickle."

The quilt was passed down through the family. During the depression years a relative in St. Louis, Missouri found the signed quilt and knowing Jane was from Vermont sent it to the Bennington Museum. The museum is one of the finest art and history museums in New England and well known for the largest collection of Grandma Moses paintings and memorabilia.

The quilt appeared in Lady's Circle Patchwork Quilts magazine, Winter 1983 issue which featured quilts and quilters from the state of Vermont. Jane's quilt was shown draped from a bowfront chest so it was not seen in its entirety. But what really put it on the road to becoming world famous was when it was pictured fully in Richard L. Cleveland & Donna Bister's book Plain and Fancy: Vermont's People and their Quilts as a Reflection of America, published in 1991. That is where and when Brenda Papadakis saw "The Quilt".

The geometry of the block designs quickly captured Brenda's attention. She spent the next five years researching Jane Stickle's life and times. She drafted the patterns of the 169 four and a half inch blocks, the 52 triangle border blocks, and the 4 kite-shaped corner blocks and then published those in the book Dear Jane, The Two Hundred Twenty-Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt. Later she made the Dear Jane®; CD Rom available making it possible to customize one's own version of the quilt from a computer.

Thanks to Jane signing her quilt - thus the quilt being returned to the state of Vermont where they have great documentation of their historical quilts, thanks to Brenda publishing her Dear Jane® book, and thanks to the internet and the Dear Jane® website thousands worldwide know Jane Stickle by name today.

Source: http://www.thebluecatcreations.com/dearjanehistory.php

Brenda Papadakis site:

BOM patterns:
http://www.dearjane.com/bom.htm

Check online for used books. They may be more in your price range.

I started my Blue Dear Jane last year (bought Stitchin' Heaven BOM -started two years ago, last BOM arrived yesterday) taking a great class with Brenda Papadakis (wonderful teacher). Brenda had us work on one of each type of block in class, focusing on the difficult ones like Nan's Naiad.

However, due to working FT, then retiring, going on a cruise with my mom, and then moving I haven't got past the two or three finished blocks and several started ones. I do plan to restart again.

I am presently working on Jane as a BOM from Stitchin' Heaven. I'm a little behind but, like you, I frequently hear the siren song of another project and get distracted.

sounds like a ambitious dream....give me a holler when you want to part with that great stash....I am doing mine in southwest fabrics & colors