For those quilters who have been living under a rock for the past 10 years…. Dear Jane is a book based on a quilt made during the Civil War by Jane Stickle.  There are quilters all over the world making the Dear Jane quilt!  It has 169 blocks – no two are alike.  And they are only 4 and a half inches square!  Plus some fancy pieced triangles for a border.  It is a fabulous quilt!  You can read lots of information about it at the DJ website – http://dearjane.com.

Monday was my Dear Jane Club day!  By the way – just to prove that I can procrastinate with the best of them, I’ve been working on my DJ quilt since 2000.  That’s like 10 years people!  It is a long term quilt project.  Obviously.  At least for some people (that would be me.)  I have taught classes on this quilt and some of the people in the classes had the nerve to finish their whole quilt top in 6 months.  But for most of us, this quilt requires a support group.  Or that we all be committed.  One or the other.  Padded rooms, here we come.  Crazy DJ quilters.  Hubby calls it a cult.

Here’s a little Show ‘n Tell from the group today……

This is Sandi with her basket quilt.  Please note:  there is not a single Dear Jane block in this quilt.  Sandi whipped out this quilt in about 2 months, I think.  And it is big!  We all oooo’d and aaaaahh’d over it today.

This is Sheri’s fabulous applique quilt.  It’s a Piece O’ Cake pattern.  Sheri won some major ribbons with this one at a recent Quilt Show including Viewer’s Choice and Member’s Choice.  I take credit for part of it because I helped her pick out the fabric.  She ought to share her ribbons with me, dontcha think?  (Sheri is shaking her head right now.)  Again note:  Not a single DJ block in this quilt.  Not one.  But we ooo’d and aaaaah’d over this one too.  That’s just the kind of supportive quilters that we are.  Even though deep down we all just wanted to steal this quilt right out of Sheri’s bag and take it home with us!

I asked Sheri which one was her favorite block and without a second’s hesitation she pointed to this one.  She loves orange!  My friend, Linda, would pick this block dead last.  She is not a fan of orange.

This is Jenni doing some hand quilting on a quilt she brought along to work on.  Good thing I told you it was Jenni because you’d never have been able to tell from the picture, right?  Not unless you memorized what kind of shoes Jenni wears.  And you guessed it!  Not a single DJ block in this one either.  Which just goes to show you, you don’t have to be actually working on a Dear Jane quilt to come to the Dear Jane Club.  And to be fair, there actually were some gals working on DJ blocks.  Perhaps next month I could actually take some pictures of those?  In the meantime, if you want to see what a DJ quilt looks like, I guess you’ll have to check out the link to the Dear Jane website.

Next month?  Dear Jane blocks!  If I remember.

Hugs,
Barb