Dear Jane
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Dear Jane
Item #: A-DJANE
Discontinued Product:
This product is no longer sold by The Electric Quilt Company.
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Details
Details
A Quick Peek at the Dear Jane Software
Dear Jane who?
In 1863 during the Civil War, a woman named Jane A. Stickle decided to make a sampler quilt. One hundred sixty-nine blocks, 52 triangles, 4 corner kites and 5602 pieces later… she had a quilt that, to this day, still leaves quilters in awe.
1. Use the Patterns
Don’t sit there tracing, drafting and re-drafting the blocks yourself; print them out from Dear Jane! This program includes all the block patterns to make the original sampler quilt, plus over 300 more! That’s a total of over 550 patterns that can be printed in any size. These blocks include:
- 169 center blocks
- 194 center block variations (These blocks are for alternate piecing methods; you choose whether you would rather do appliqué, rotary cutting, or paper piecing!)
- 125 blocks not included in the original quilt (log cabins, flying geese, stars, etc.)
- 4 corner kites
- 52 triangles
- blocks to create a simple scalloped border or the complex scalloped border from the classic quilt
- and more
2. Design Quilts
All of the powerful quilt design features of Electric Quilt are here!
- Design your own quilt – traditional or contemporary
- Start with the classic 1863 Dear Jane quilt
- Design one from scratch and choose your blocks and fabrics
- Use the Dear Jane Project Wizard to guide you through designing a new quilt
- Choose a quilt layout from the “Layout Library,” where quilts are pre-sized to be king, queen, all the way down to placemat sizes
- Unlimited borders in 23 different styles including special kites and scallops not even found in EQ
- A Recolor tool that works like magic
3. Color with Fabric
There are over 2,500 scanned fabrics in Dear Jane, and if those aren’t enough, you can even scan in and save your own fabrics! Check out the Fabric and Palette “Libraries” in Dear Jane to see the many choices.
Fabric Library:
Browse fabrics by color and find the shade you are looking for. Use any of the Dear Jane look-alikes to make an authentic Dear Jane with look-alike fabrics you may find in stores.
Jane’s A -1 block from 1863
Jane’s quilt center was 13 by 13. The Dear Jane blocks are known by letters (A – M) and numbers (1 -13).
A-1 look-alikes
from Benartex, Four Corners Designs, Hoffman and Timeless Treasures
Palette Library
Or, instead of getting fabrics one by one from the library, load an entire palette of coordinating scanned fabrics with just a few clicks. There are 23 palettes in the Palette library ranging from: 1930’s, Batiks, Civil War fabrics, Neutrals, Plaids, Redwork, Scrappy, Stained Glass, Tropical, and more…
You can even create and save your favorite or your own scanned fabrics as a group in the palette library.
4. Print Patterns, etc.
Print your own Dear Jane block patterns in any size, as blocks, templates, foundation patterns, or rotary cutting charts. You can even print the blocks just as they appear in Brenda’s Dear Jane book! (Did we mention that you can print them in any size? Just because Jane’s blocks were all 4.50″ by 4.50″, doesn’t mean your blocks need to be that size too.)
- Templates – Specify the size of seam allowance around each patch. Move or delete unnecessary templates before you print.
- Foundation Patterns – Dear Jane numbers each pattern, separating units and adding seam allowance. Move or delete unnecessary foundation pattern sections before you print.
- Blocks – Print them as line drawings, in gray scale, in color, as Brenda’s patterns, or as quilting stencils! Print off your favorite blocks as line drawings and make quick coloring book pages for children.
- Rotary Cutting Charts – Print rotary cutting charts for blocks in Dear Jane.
- Quilts – Print your quilts as line drawings or colored with fabrics.
- Fabric Yardage Estimates – Calculate yardage in inches or centimeters and print yardage charts.
5. Learn About Jane
Read about Jane’s life, see where the quilt is now and even zoom in to inspect the quilt close up.
6. About the Author
Video interviews on how Brenda fell in love with the quilt that changed her life.
7. Block tips and project ideas
Read Brenda’s sewing instructions for each block. Take a 12 – Lesson Dear Jane class from Brenda as you make her small “In the Manner of Jane” wallhanging, while learning the techniques to construct all the sampler blocks. Make a Dear Jane “Table Topper,” start a row quilt with friends, and much more.
8. Chart your progress
To chart the progress of your quilt, you can fill “My Block Chart” with scans of your Dear Jane blocks! Or if you don’t have access to a scanner, print off a copy of the chart and put and “X” through each block as you complete it. Print certificates of completion to mark the milestones on your Jane Journey. Or surprise a Dear Jane friend with a certificate. There are nine certificates to choose from, each in three styles.
9. Browse the gallery
Making a quilt like Jane Stickle’s or using many of the blocks in her quilt is possible. See the inspiring finished Dear Jane quilts on display in the quilt gallery and in project ideas. There are over 60 quilts, many of which have close-ups of blocks, stitching, or quilt labels as well as notes from the quilters themselves.
Includes
Includes
Included with this purchase
- CD to install
- 264 page user manual with full color gallery quilts
- 7 lessons
- How-to instructions for program features
- Over 550 patterns
- 2,500 scanned fabrics
- Full design ability
- Pattern printing capabilities
Features
Features
It's like a mini-EQ with Dear Jane blocks!
- Save a copy of a project
- Save a project for email
- Send mail
- Save the current palette as default
- Automatically save project file when sketchbook changes (Preferences dialog)
- Automatically back up project every (x) minutes (Preferences dialog)
- Remember Open and Save directories (Preferences dialog)
- Resizable tabbed palette for blocks, motifs, and triangles
- Resizable tabbed palette for prints and solids
- Search by block notecard text
- Expanded notes field in block and quilt notecards
- Project Wizard for previewing existing projects, creating new projects from a template, and guiding users through the steps to make a quilt
- Layout library includes over one hundred ready-made quilt layouts
- Copy of the Dear Jane quilt in metric sizes in the Layout Library, so you don't have to convert inches to centimeters
- Over 30 coordinating fabric palettes in the Palette library for selecting multiple fabrics at one time
- Improved Fabrics by Color section to fabric library in 38 colors
- Dear Jane Look-alike fabrics for creating an authentic Dear Jane quilt (fabric notecards include manufacturer and fabric line information)
- Import scanned fabrics in high color
- Save scanned or other virtual fabrics in user fabric libraries
- Tape measure tool
- Eyedropper tool for identifying solid or fabric
- One-step spraycan tool
- Random Recolor tool for shifting hue, saturation and brightness in increments, randomizing the quilt's colors, and mapping solid colors to prints from the sketchbook and vice versa
- 23 border styles
- Blocks Fitted Inside border - allows you to line up or "fit together" the blocks of two separate adjacent borders, because the fitted border is reading off the previous border.
- Drop Blocks Fitted border - same as Blocks Fitted Inside border, but in a "drop" or staggered block style
- Triangles and Kites border for creating the Dear Jane border
- Keep current border setup when starting new quilt
- Clone borders streamlines design setup time
- Lock border sliders for easy resizing
- Ability to delete colors from sketchbook
- Improved block organization in sketchbook
- Page setup and fonts adjustment buttons on all print dialogs
- Print blocks without the patch outline
- Print quilts without block and patch outlines
- Print the overall size of the quilt under the header
- More fabric width choices in yardage estimates
- Ability to turn off the key block when printing templates
- Interactive print preview for moving and deleting templates
- Trimmed seam allowance at sharp corners of templates as you would do during construction
- Interactive print preview for moving and deleting sections of foundation patterns
- Rotary cutting charts
- HTML style help
- Rotate fabric
- HTML side of the program for learning
- Learn about Jane Stickle & her family's lives
- Learn about the Bennington Museum that houses her quilt
- 3 Block lists - referenced by block name, difficulty level, and A1 through M13 names
- Clickable quilt that leads to block, triangle, and kite tips within the program
- Block tips have references to Dear Jane book pages, BlockBase reference numbers, and blocks similar in construction that you may want to complete next
- Close up view of Jane's 1863 quilt
- 9 video interviews with Brenda Papadakis
- Read Dear Jane articles from various magazines
- Learn about the Dear Jane book by Brenda
- HTML style "My Block Chart" for crossing off blocks as you go or filling in with scans of you own blocks
- Printable journal pages in 3 styles for creating a history of your quilt
- 9 different certificates of completion in 3 styles signed by Brenda Papadakis
- Project ideas for Block Swaps (signature swaps, christmas swaps, spring fling swap, etc.)
- Project ideas for Round Robins (vertical Janes, rows of sharing, and the infamous Beatles exchange)
- More fun project ideas (table toppers, stationery, quilt labels, Dear Jane 'Toid Tins, and other quilt or sewing ideas)
- Links to the Dear Jane website, Dear Jane mail list, and other internet resources
- Sewing Methods for planning, sewing and finishing your quilt (about freezer paper, hand-piecing, appliqué, reverse appliqué, batting, quilting, and even inking signatures)
- Tips and supplies list for making your own Dear Jane
- 12 lessons for 12 blocks, sashes and assembly, quilting designs, and more by Brenda Papadakis. These are lessons for completing a small wallhanging which teaches you the construction techniques you'll need for making a full size Dear Jane quilt
System Requirements
System Requirements
System requirements for Dear Jane
- Windows XP®, Windows Vista®, Windows 7®, Windows 8®, or Windows 10®
- 575 MB free hard disk space
- 64 MB RAM suggested
- 16-bit/high-color monitor capable of 800x600 resolution
- CD-ROM drive
- Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher (download the most current version of Internet Explorer for free from www.microsoft.com)
To watch Brenda's Video Interviews (*.AVI format)
Windows Media Player (set as default player for .AVI video files) (download the most current version of Windows Media Player for free from www.microsoft.com)To view and print the Journal pages (*.PDF format)
Adobe Reader (download the most current version of Acrobat Reader for free from www.adobe.com)Reviews
Reviews
14 Reviews
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Please consider offering Dear Jane in a Mac version. It is so popular right now. I am sure you have lost many sales because of this. I would have bought it if you had a Mac version. Thanks.
Hi Leigh. I apologize for your frustrations. Unfortunately, we don’t have any immediate plans for making a Mac version of Dear Jane.
I’ve had this software for a while, but have recently started working on my Dear Jane. Since, then, we made the switch to Apple. Now my software won’t run! When is this software going to be available for Apple. I’m so frustrated!
“I think I am going to have a great time with this CD. I have had the book for some time now, and have even completed a few of the blocks on my own, but plan on really taking off with this CD. What fun!!!”
“I just wanted to let you know I am very impressed with the DJ program. The more I use the program the happier I am. I have a phobia about rotary cutting (I like to do everything by hand) but made myself do Brenda’s first lesson yesterday. I am pleased to say I have two “almost perfect” squares. The lessons were just what I needed.”
“If you are interested in making the Jane Stickle Quilt, this is your best resource. I’ve owned it for over a year and continue to find new areas for tips on how to complete those difficult 4 1/2″ blocks. It also allows you to modify them. I also own EQ5. It is a magnificent tool for designing other projects and could be used for making the Jane Stickle Quilt. But if you are wanting to do a ‘Stickle’ quilt…the Dear Jane Software is the best program for this project. It has saved me MANY MANY design hours!”
“If you are planning to make a Dear Jane quilt, you should buy this software. It complements Brenda’s book nicely and extends the world of Dear Jane. Electric Quilt did a great job of computerizing Dear Jane.”
“Everywhere I go on the CD there is something more to discover, another new little button to click and explore. I am fascinated to find these little gems sprinkled through the CD. The programmers at EQ must have had more fun than a barrel of monkeys putting this together. The creativity of our friends online and the people at Electric Quilt is astounding.”
“This CD will provide the spark for many who have placed their [previous] DJ’s on hold. Personally, I love that I can change the size of the block if I like. I will be making some [larger block size janes] to display in the shop so others can see they don’t ‘have’ to be 4.5″ finished.”
“I got this to make my own Dear Jane quilt. I am making 6″ blocks and the program makes all the adjustments for me. You can’t go wrong with this is you are making the Dear Jane quilt. It has been a life saver with the tips and being able to print out the paper pieced patterns makes life so much easier.”
“I am awed — truly awed!! This program is a FINE bit of quilting software, but more than that to me, it is a tribute to quilters everywhere. What comes through so well to me is individual quilter’s love of the quilt and of their journey while making their version.
The CD seems to be a tribute to that kind of friendship that is cultivated in this new electronic way while we work on blocks from a quilt that was originally made a long, long time ago.
Now it’s time to print some patterns — actually it’s time for bed — but guess what I’m going to do???”
“If you are a fan of the wonderful sampler quilt made by Jane A. Stickle in 1863, or the book documenting it and its patterns by Brenda Papadakis, you’ll be thrilled with this quilt design software.”
“You do not have to be a dear jane fan to have fun with this project. I … finally had to come up for a breath of air. Just too much fun. It is well worth the money.”
Two thumbs up for the new Dear Jane CD. I’ve wanted to do the quilt since 1996 but had no idea how to start. Having been an EQ user since the first EQ arrived, the lessons are really easy to understand. Love the new coloring redo tool and all the extra info from Brenda, including help on each of the blocks in the quilt. Having the options of doing your own Dear Jane in different sizes and styles is an added plus. I know it took a long time in coming but I definitely would give it two thumbs up; a remarkable program.”