This quilt and Peggy’s story was worth sharing:

This all started because I needed a challenge and a bit of discipline in my life. My better half, Jim, was going though some really difficult health issues and I needed focus. So DJ came into the mix.

The book that inspired the quilt is by Brenda Manges Papadakis “Dear Jane – The Two Hundred Twenty Five Patterns from 1863 Jane A. Sickle Quilt”. Also EQ has put out the Dear Jane CD and manual, and this makes doing this quilt a possibility of a finished effort. If not for EQ one would have to draw all the blocks and work out the math and she (DJ) would probably just find a corner or shelf and lay there forever unfinished. But with EQ you can create the original size blocks of 5″ to finish at 4 /12″ or make larger blocks. My effort is from my stash and all the 4 1/2″ blocks are different fabrics. The triangles on the borders are often repeats of fabrics in the blocks. I haven’t had the “want to” to find out just how many different fabrics I used, but maybe after it is quilted I will.

The first block was started on Jan  27th, 2008 and I finished the last triangle for the border yesterday on June 23rd, 2009. A lot has happened in this year and a half. I started marking in the book as I worked on the quilt, some notes of what was going on and where some of the special fabrics came from and who shared them with me. These are good memories to look back on. There was a long time when nothing was happening with the blocks, this is when Jim, my husband, passed away and so the world sort of stopped. But you can only put life on hold for so long and then it is time to get on with the great and wonderful future. So once again Dear Jane called and I started on the road to recovery and a finished project.

As you can see my effort is call Obscene, Insane Dear Jane and while it is not the traditional colors and fabrics of the period it is what soothed and fed my soul.

Peggy Raley