DEAR JANE made it !

What a pleasure to hear Audrey introduce our program speaker for the night.  Audrey met Karen Baldwin over 24 years ago when she attended an  art retreat in (?) Nebraska.  Audrey was not fond of the instructor she had, but Paul would not go way up there and get her - so she stuck it out and has been mightily blessed since for not giving up.  Karen was there with her Palico Art Group (no laughing if I really goofed up that name) and they have been very good friends since.  They have seen each other at many art meetings since and if you went on our last Des Moines trip - that's where you might have met Karen before. 

 

 In 2006, Karen walked into a Denver Quilt shop - Harriet's Treadle" - and saw her first Dear Jane quilt hanging on a wall.  Of course she had to buy the book - "Dear Jane:  The 225 Patterns from 1863 Jane A Stickles Quilt" by Brenda Manges Papadakis.

 For your viewing pleasure - click on the pictures and look at the larger shots - complete and then in quarters.

 The green leaf above on the right hand side of the border, was in honor of the over 1/3 of the total of Vermont men that died during the Civil War.

 Karen loved the quilt, but did not like the book.  Each block was shown with just a picture of the layout - she ended up buying the CD that had all the patterns on it.  It took her quite a bit to get the Civil War reproductions to do her version - there are over 200 fat quarters represented in 5,602 pieces.  Wow what a journey.  And Karen was smart - she did a journal of every step.  She even got on line at the Dear Jane Website and now has three very dear friends - Truly in Chicago, Anna in Iceland and Claire in Tampa, Fl.  One morning very early she received a caller that just yelled M-4, M-4. 

 140 years after Jane finished her quilt - Karen finished hers.  Karen started March 26, 2007 and finished it on May 12, 2012.  Her Dear Jane quilt measures 80 1/4" x 80 1/4", has 169 - 4 1/2" finished blocks and 52 triangles in the border.  Karen learned to paper piece, hand applique (ask her about melon seeds) and to use templates.  She used 16 spools of thread and 4 packages of #90 applique needles.  All that work and she is more amazed at Jane Stickle who back in 1863 in Bennington, Vermont, with no electricity, pieced by hand the original.  The original is made up of 3" and 7" blocks.  When Brenda Papadakis wrote the book - she decided to make them all the same size and take out the additional confusion.

 Jane was born on April 8, 1817 and died March 2, 1896.  In 1930, the quilt was found in an attic and brought to the Bennington Museum and donated.  No one got the name of the man that brought it.  Jane had signed her work so some information from census information was obtained.  Her marker at the Shaftsbury Cemetery was unreadable, so $1 donations was sent from all over the world amounting to over one million dollars and a new monument was set April 8th, 1999.  (The remaining funds are being used for the museum)  Karen blessed us not only with her journey, but Jane's.

 Course after finishing such an  E A S Y  quilt, Karen has not stopped.  She also brought Eleanor Burns' Underground Railroad quilt that only took her two months to do......Karen was in her Thimbleberries mode during the making of this quilt.  Civil War repo's are still her favorite.

 and home spun is her worst favorite of all fabrics.  There were over 20,000 Soldiers Aide Societies during the Civil war that made over 500,000 quilts - the one shown below is Karen's version of the Soldiers Cot Quilt.  According to history - the Society wanted these cot quilts to be 7 feet long and 50" wide, to be made up of calico and homespun.  Karen did her's in the uneven 9-patch pattern and embroidered famous battles on the center blocks.  Of all those quilts - only 15 were known to have survived and Karen saw three in one quilt shop.  The stories capture Karen's imagination right along with the quilts.

 Karen is also working on Barbara Brackman's "Civil War Sampler Quilt", over 30 - 12" quilt blocks.

 She is also working on an 1857 Bride quilt that is all applique.

Karen's Dear Jane quilt is fantastic - would she make another - she doesn't think so; however, she has heard of a woman in south Africa that has made four.

Karen says there is so many wonderful quilts out there to make - "Farmer's Wife Quilt", "Dear Hannah" - go on line and see all those that are available.

AND REMEMBER:

"Better finished than perfect"

Thank you so much Karen for sharing - It was more than worth the wait.