1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt

Are you familiar with Jane Stickle? .... i think most quilters are. she finished her Dear Jane quilt in 1868....during the War. it took her 4 years to hand piece.....with 5,602 pieces.  i have tried to resist but cannot any longer....i am making my own Dear Jane quilt.....with 5,602 pieces. although i try not to think of it that way.....it is easier to just think of 225 patterns. even that is daunting.

Brenda Manges Papadakis wrote a book...she re-created Jane's blocks from her quilt. she actually went to the museum twice and drafted out all the little blocks....plus the triangular shapes for the border. here is her book.

Her book doesn't actually have instructions....just the blocks drawn out. it is assumed that you know enough to figure out how to create the blocks. some are simple and can be paper pieced.....some i may need to have templates. many will be applique. all blocks are 4.5" square....that is pretty small for me. i like my blocks about 12" ..  LOL  

Brenda talks in the book about her research on Jane and what she found. in the book she writes Jane letters....expressing her thoughts of what she has found or how she is coming with the blocks.


So, even though this will be a major challenge and keep me busy for at least a year i figure....i am determined to add one more thing on my plate of 'projects to do'.  i started out with some fairly simple blocks and scanned them with the scanner and printed them out. i paper pieced a few.

Wednesday night i started paper piecing and did these 3 blocks. it took me about 3 hours...much longer than i had anticipated. but there was much frogging and gnashing of teeth.

This is A6...pretty straight forward and simple. i didn't have to frog this one. LOL it was paper pieced in 3 sections

Then i tried A5.....it was paper pieced in 3 sections. and frogged twice. i still couldn't get the center square to match up properly and finally just left it alone.

I figured i would do one more before calling it a night. i tackled A1 next. for all the small pieces it went together pretty well....only 1 frogging. it was paper pieced in 4 sections. that one corner has a part that doesn't match properly...it is supposed to be a small triangle like the other 3 corners. but the paper piecing didn't work going from one side to the other. when i did the other side i started at each end and met in the middle....but had to cut the paper in half and mess with it till i got the right size square in there. i might go back and fix that corner later....or not.

So, 3 blocks down and only 1 of them is really good. LOL    i shall get better.

Last night i tried A2. this was paper pieced in 10 sections....yep, 10.  each of the 9 patches had to be done separately and the center square was done in halves. for all those tiny pieces it went together well. no frogging on that one. not perfect...but close enough for me.

I figure when all the blocks are done and all together.....a bit of not matching won't even be seen. that's my story.

My sister is making this quilt, too. she is done with row A and is on row B.  i may catch up with her in a few months.

So, my evenings kind of go like this.....sit down and read a chapter or 2....get up and finish the jigsaw puzzle on the table....go play a computer game for an hour....get up and go stitch a Dear Jane block....sit down and read another chapter or 2......think about working on the cross stitch Amish project (remember that?).....think about crocheting on the tshirt rug (remember that?).....go play computer games until my eyes close.....go to bed....it's about 1am.

Get up the next day and do it all over again.     WHEEEEEEE!!!!!    hahahahahahahahaha