FINISHED WITH DEAR JANE!!!!!

I can hardly believe that I finished this quilt, but it's true!!  From my first sight of a few Dear Jane replicas at the Fort Worth, Texas quilt show in 2008, when I was so impressed by it, then thinking about should I or shouldn't I (or could I?), for about 5 years, until I received the Dear Jane Book for Christmas in December, 2013, I just wasn't sure.

But, when I received the book from DS#3/DIL (after having it on my Christmas list for a few years), that clinched it!  I finished the first block (A1) on 1/22/2014.  I took the last stitch on the binding 8/28/2017.  That's about 3 years, 7 months and 6 days.  

I definitely could not have done it without the "Dear Jane" book by Brenda Papadakis and this web site.  I also received a lot of encouragement from Kathleen Tracy's Dear Jane Support Group on Yahoo.  Not to mention tons of encouragement from my Blogging Buddies group and many other bloggers, friends and family (especially my ever loving and supportive DH!!).

After all the paper piecing (PP) that I did on it, I should be an expert, but no, I continued to have to rip out many of the PP seams, probably due to always being in a hurry to get things done.  My DS#1 hung a clothes line for me, which has made taking pictures of quilts much easier.

My piecing, appliqué and quilting certainly isn't perfect and I broke down and included many instances of machine appliqué because I was just tired of trying to appliqué a tiny triangle measuring about 3/8" by hand.  I even PP some of the diamond shapes at the points of the border triangles - anything to make it easier.

Each of the colored fabrics in the 169 5" square blocks in the center section is different, and each of the colored fabrics in the 52 border triangles is different from each other.  I used a variety of background fabrics for all the blocks trying to use fabrics that would look good with the main colors of each block.  My sashing, corner kite blocks and scallops is a good quality muslin.

As you can see above, Jane Stickle added to the original quilt that there are 5,602 pieces in the quilt.  I didn't take the time to count, but that is probably close!  I wonder what she was thinking when she made her quilt in 1863 and what she would think if she knew that hundreds or thousands of women all over the world are copying her quilt.  How did she come up with so many designs, because each block is unique!

As you can see, I am one happy quilter!!

Now for the name.  I decided to name it DEAR JANE'S QUILTING JOURNEY (from Texas to Oregon).

Thanks again for all your support over the past 3 1/2 years!