Emily Alexander has been a knitting customer at Purl for quite a long time.  Although she had no previous experience with sewing, she had the desire to work with fabric. She took a class on hand piecing and came across the Dear Jane Quilt.  She was instantly inspired to make one of her own, though she admits she was intimidated by it at first. She picked up a copy of Brenda Papadakis' book and hasn't looked back since! 

Emily thinks that the coolest thing about this book is that it doesn't give directions for the blocks.  It is left up to each individual to make each block by whatever means possible!  (This doesn't mean there is no help out there if you decided to embark upon the journey of making your own Dear Jane quilt, you can find tons of help and techniques at the author's website.)  We are truly inspired by Emily's progress on this amazing project and her first quilt!

Emily has been piecing each block by hand, using a method of making templates out of freezer paper.  First Emily traces the block onto the freezer paper, numbering each piece according to which fabric it is and in the order she will be putting it together.  Then she cuts the pieces  apart and presses them with a hot dry iron onto  the wrong side of her fabric and carefully traces around each piece.  Then she cuts the pieces from the fabric with a 1/4" seam allowance.  She hand pieces her  blocks in the way that Molly explaines in her tutorial on hand piecing.