Monday 25 July 2016

My Dear Jane Quilt

A few years ago I discovered the joy that is patchwork and quilting. Since I always like to run before I can walk, I decided as my second ever quilt to go for the mother of them all, a Baby Jane quilt, based on a Dear Jane quilt. 

green blue baby jane quilt

A Baby Jane quilt is based on the blocks from the original Dear Jane quilt, a quilt made by Jane A. Stickle in 1863. It consists of 225 individual patterns - each square and border triangle is different. 

dear jane
The original Dear Jane quilt

Now I cheated, I admit. I didn't do all the blocks in a proper Dear Jane, and I left all the triangular blocks blank. But I certainly did well over half of the square ones, and for a complete novice, I'm quite pleased with it myself, if I do say so. This was my second ever quilt and far more complicated than anything I'd ever attempted previously. It took eight months to complete start to finish. Good thing I didn't have a baby back then or no doubt it would have been a lot longer.


baby jane quilt
It will fit the bed it's intended for,
which is a King whereas this is only a standard double.
One day I hope to complete an entire Baby Jane quilt using all the patterns. If you want to know all these patterns, I would recommend the Dear Jane book by Brenda Manges Papadakis, which is what I used. It's well worth the money and you could use the patterns to make hundreds of different patchwork designs.


dear jane book

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