Dear Jane Quilts

This is a VERY popular pattern with many quilters. You will find Dear Jane groups on the web (try Yahoo!) -- ask at your local quilt shop... and there is a national group that meets annually in Shipshewana, Indiana in the spring every year. You can even purchase a CD/DVD (not sure which format) that will make creating the patterns a breeze!

Do a Google images search for Dear Jane quilt and you'll have more than enough beautiful quilts to look at! This link might help -- not sure if it will work or not.

Here are both her Dear Janes.

The other picture links (including the one with the rosettte) have vanished.

If you go to Google, click Images, and then enter Dear Jane Quilt, or just Dear Jane, there are lots of pictures of Dear Janes, including some different colourways and settings. Interesting.

Sally at the Seaside~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Roberta wrote:

There is one of Tutu's rosette in among these, but it is a very small piccy and when you click to make it bigger it goes even smaller. Still, you can see the ribbon!

Sally at the Seaside~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Kate G. wrote:

This link should connect you to a whole bunch of "JANIACS"

or the tiny url

Why do they use the long one if the short ones work?? LOL

I just realized..... Tutu's quilt is linked from that Janiacs page!!!

There are several of us who have done or who are doing one of these delightful quilts. Tutu has a brown and white one, too. Pati C. is doing one. Blow me if I can't remember the others- sorry to those I have forgotten. Mine is an on-going, 'background' project! I really do want to finish it within the next year - it's been too long.. Mine is not a traditional colourway, and I am only doing 100 of the blocks.

Do look around as Sally suggested. It is amazing how different they look from one another - and from the original Jane Stickle quilt. . In message , Steph writes

yep, I am working on hand quilting my first DJ. And have started a second one, which will not be the whole quilt, how big it is depends on when I get back to it and how much of the fabric I have. There are a few DJ newsgroups, the "big" list is hosted by Brenda Papadakis, and there is also the DJRetreats group (yahoo) which is the one I am on. It is amazing that more than 10 years after the book originally came out people are still discovering this quilt. And making it in many iterations. The software is a stand alone program from EQ, and it will link to EQ but you don't have to have EQ to use it, I think. (Can't find my book at the moment. sigh)

The DJ journey is an interesting one. The small blocks are addictive. There are many that are easiest done by hand piecing. And I highly recommend getting the book with CD, "Quilted Diamonds 2" by Linda Franz. The CD is almost 2 hours and has wonderful tips for hand piecing. I wish I had known about the method Linda uses when I was making my first DJ. It would have been a lot easier than it was.

Pati, > I recently heard of the civil war era quilt - "Dear Jane" - it's so

I have 25 blocks made! It's amazing the number of shop owners I run across who have never heard of this quilt.

Janiacs also hold retreats in Shipshewana Indiana in November and April every year. I went last April, but it's too far to go twice a year. I won't go next month, but I will go back in April. It's wonderful.

Cindy

If you want a chance at owning a DJ without the hassle of actually making the quilt yourself, the Empire Quilter's Guild (NYC) has a FABULOUS one as the raffle quilt for their March 2009 quilt show:

The back of the quilt is also very cool. There's a link for info on buying raffle tickets at the top of the page.

-Michele in NYC

WOW! That's a show stopper! I love it!

It is my obsession. I have made 6 blocks this week to the great pain of my fingers but I love every one of them. It has been almost a year since I have tackled any.

My quilting has grown so much from this quilt. I tackle what I can when I can and have learnt so many tricks, new way of quilting (needle turn, reverse applique, paperless paperpiecing, how to use a pigma market to make a piece in applique get to where it should be).

The main web page is: http:/

You will find all kinds of hints and links there.

I've been planning on making one when my ankle gets better. I got the CD and rulers and have been looking at a lot of eye candy. I thought that I'd do one with a black background, though I may change that to very dark blue.\

Bev in TX

There was a Simply Quilts episode about the quilt with guest Brenda Papadakis.. Go to:

Then in the small search box on the left hand side above "Search Videos", type "dear jane" and then click the "Search Videos" link. Do not use the big search box at the top of the screen.

You need to select each show segment in the proper order, but it is worth it.

Bev in TX

I forgot one more thing. Brenda also wrote a "Dear Hannah" book, which has a lot more applique in it. While that's not everyone's cup of tea, some prefer it to piecing. There is some piecing in this quilt, but a lot less than the "Dear Jane" quilt. You can see a picture of it at:

You can "look inside" the book at

Bev in TX

Thanks for links everyone! The videos are wonderful. I've joined the mail list...I think I'm going to dive into this. 1 at a time. Slow but sure. This looks like a great long-term hand working project!

Beautiful quilt! Just gorgeous.

If I don't win it, I'm going to buy the DJ panels that just came out. Sew a few of them babies together and you got yourself a Dear Jane quilt.

Cindy

Only some of the DJ blocks are on the panel fabric. sigh. At least according to what I have read of it. Might be more of the blocks printed as panels later on if this line sells well, though.

Pati, > Beautiful quilt! Just gorgeous.

Well I dove...............

My MIL's name is Jane so I figured it would be the perfect quilt for her! I started drafting out some of the easier patterns that I could do myself from pictures I found online and will get the book in a while when I can afford it. I should be able to make it completely from my stash except for the background fabric which I have chosen to be plain white. And for the kicker, each time I make a block, I make two more exactly the same to go with them! One for my MIL one for my Mom and one for me! I have made up kits for 7 blocks with fabrics cut and a template in a separate ziploc bag so far and I finished all three A1's yesterday! I have to keep things so organized with this one or else I would end up making more than a few blocks twice over!

1 block down........ 224 to go!

Wish me LUCK!