Dear Jane revisted

Yesterday's state quilt guild meeting is over, and I am now the former president!  It was a great meeting, if I do say so myself.  A large number of new people joined, and attendance was up by quite a bit.  It makes me especially happy because when this particular board took over six years ago, the previous board was set on folding up.  The treasury was pretty much depleted and no programs were planned.  We managed to weather the pandemic by publishing additional newsletters and upgrading our web presence.  Once it became safe to meet again, we returned to our twice annual gatherings, with excellent speakers from within the state and fun programs.

My favorite part of our meetings has always been "show and tell."  In the fall, I had issued a presidential challenge to use the "Snowflake Bentley" fabric that had been copies from plates at the Smithsonian.  Bentley was a Vermonter who photographed snowflakes and learned that no two are alike.  Here's what one quilter showed yesterday.

Debie cut the snowflake blocks from the panel and then added snowflake blocks she designed herself along with some she machine embroidered.  It's a huge quilt!  And!  When she finished this quilt, she made a lap quilt with blocks she'd made using sashiko embroidery.  

Ginny and I did a short program about our journeys with Dear Jane.  We showed some of the "Baby Jane" quilts we've made over the years since the book came out in 1996.  Here are a few of mine.

This is my Asian Jane, made with those stunning prints and a black background.  (That's Tess holding the quilt)  Mary quilted this on her longarm.

Here's the baby quilt using 1930 blocks, some of them swapped.  I machine quilted in the ditch on the sashing and then hand quilted the individual blocks.

And here's the Christmas one I drape on the couch every year, again with some blocks that were swapped.  I machine quilted this quilt.

I walked over 8,000 steps yesterday, but it was well worth it!