Dear Jane

I did promise to come back and let you know my plans for these 1930s style fabrics.  This bundle has been curated mostly from Pretty Little Fabrics and Trims, with a few from Sew and Quilt and and wee pack of fat sixteenths to add to the mix from Tikki London.  Well, these and a few other fqs that Santa brought are destined for a Dear Jane Quilt.

As you can see I've already cut the paper pieces for my first block.  I'm very keen!

I first mentioned my interest in a Dear Jane quilt here back in 2011 but my plans got shelved because I got involved in so many other fun things.  However, through Farmer's Wife QALs, Bee Blocks galore, swaps and charity stitching I have always had that Dear Jane quilt in the back of my mind.

Have you seen it? Check out the original here.  There are some fabulous versions in more modern palettes too - just Google it or search Pinterest to see.

Well, on my browsing time whilst feeding Cutesy Tootsie I happened upon Brenda Papdakis's Dear Jane book on Amazon and it called my name just before my birthday last year, so I helped hubby out by ordering it for him to gift to me.  I'm kind like that ;-)

So now I'm going to do it.  I'm going to EPP those crazy little 4.5" squares.  Yes, I am.  There are 169 square blocks and then all the border triangles.  I'm not deciding now how many I will make or if I will add the triangle borders.  I think I'll just see how it goes.  Remember I did say this year I was going to sew as I fancy, so I'm not going to be a slave to any particular target.

As a starting point, I've opted to make the centre block first and then I will work outwards sort of treating it like a medallion quilt, adding little pieces of sashing and some cornerstones (which aren't in the original quilt).  I thought that by doing this I would have a continuously growing piece rather than a large pile of blocks which means I could stop really at any point when the quilt top is square rather than feeling obliged to finish it, or worse still leaving it as a UFO.  Make sense?

Well, here goes!!  Dear Jane here I come!



PS If you are interested in the book you can find it here.  For info, the book has very little by way of instruction, no measurements at all really for fabric or cutting, but it does have the diagrams you see above for all 169 squares and all of the pieced triangle borders too.  You could use it to foundation piece the quilt by machine or to EPP as I plan to.  There are many other Dear Jane resources on the internet which are easily found with a quick Google search.