Jane A. Blakely Stickle made the original Dear Jane quilt in 1863 during the Civil war. It has 225 patterns or blocks, with triangles, and four unique corner pieces for the border. There are over 5,000 individual pieces in Jane's original quilt. The blocks are about 4.5 inches square.
You can read more about her at the Dear Jane web-site
Just before Christmas I had an appointment with a new quilting client. She brought me a Dear Jane quilt done by a friend who had passed away. The quilt has 10 rows of 14 blocks each. There is no border. The workmanship is excellent. This was the first time that I had ever seen a Dear Jane except in books. The blocks are so small and the piecing is so intricate, I couldn't take my eyes off it. My client wanted stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) throughout. Wow, that was going to be a lot of work. I was excited and scared to death all at the same time.
I started work on the quilt on New Year's Eve. I wanted to document my progress with this special quilt. I have a few photos of blocks that I quilted and photos of blocked that I quilted, ripped out and quilted again.
The little red things are plastic to hold the quilt in place. That is how the quilt came to me. I decided that I would leave those pieces in unitl I get to that block and then snip them off. They fly all over the room when clipped. And the litter the floor of my studio. Here is my progress so far.
December 31st - 9 blocks
January 1st - 18 blocks
January 2nd - 14 blcoks
January 3rd - 22 blocks
January 4th - 21 blocks
January 5th - 10 blocks
January 6th - 7 blocks
January 7th - 0 (slacker)
January 8th - 10 blocks
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