I'm sure most of you have heard of the Dear Jane quilt or as some like to call it That Quilt! It's a quilt made over 150 years ago by a lady called Jane A. Blakely Stickle and contains over 5600 pieces. It's a sampler quilt of 4.5" blocks (169 of them!) with a triangle border (adding it all up to 225 patterns in total).
What I had not heard of was a Share Jane quilt - get lots of people to make a block and spread the work over many hands! Great idea isn't it? So when Paula Rafferty organised an Irish Share Jane Quilting Bee, I joined in and said sign me up for 2 blocks. I figured 5" unfinished, 4.5" finished, aren't they tiny? Easy peasy, should be fast as lightning!
Then I got blocks B7 and B8 in 3 different colourways and had to stop and think! How on Earth was I going to make these? ThatQuilt blog came to my rescue and I learned how to do reverse applique, needle turn applique and got to re-visit inset seams.
For my part I am glad to have learned a lot about blocks from templates and exercising my hand sewing skills. They are far from perfect but I really like the softness the blocks seem to have from handpiecing when compared to machine pieced. I have also discovered I love the black on black blocks the most and really want to make a black quilt now!
Thank you Paula for allowing me to share in the trio of Irish Dear Jane quilts! I wouldn't have tried this otherwise and am delighted to have finished these little but fiddly blocks eventually!
Even though they are only little blocks I'm calling this one a Friday Finish!
