Who the heck is Paulette?

The history of the Dear Jane quilt I’m working on spans 150+ years and links together countless people.

The original of this quilt (pictured above) was completed in 1863 by one Jane A. Stickle. It is a masterpiece of quilting complexity, especially for its time, featuring 225 unique miniature blocks, 56 of which aren’t even square. Yet it languished in relative obscurity (a.k.a. a historical museum in a Vermont town) for years.

Quilt teacher Brenda Papadakis discovered the quilt and became fascinated with both the quilt and the quilter, feeling a connection to Jane Stickle that spanned over a century.

Brenda researched Jane’s life, drafted patterns for the blocks in the quilt, and eventually published a book entitled Dear Jane, complete with patterns, history, and imaginary letters from Brenda to Jane.

Brenda’s book started a craze among quilters, with websites and support groups springing up as other quilters started making their own “Dear Jane” quilts.

But how do we connect Jane Stickle of the Civil War era to me, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”-style? We know Brenda is continuing Jane’s legacy, and we know that my new friend Donna donated this quilt “kit” to me, but who is the missing link?

Donna acquired this quilt kit from the estate of the woman who assembled the kit at some point before her death, but never really got rolling on making the quilt. Donna promised this woman’s family that she’d see the quilt completed.

I don’t know much about this mystery woman, but there is an inscription from Brenda in the front of the Dear Jane book that came with the kit, and that inscription is made out to Paulette.

Much like Brenda wondered about Jane – her design choices, what she was feeling as she made that quilt – so I wonder about Paulette as I work on the quilt she had intended to make.

That feeling of interconnectedness with quilters of past, present, and future is there to some extent on every quilt project, but I feel it extra strongly with this one. Perhaps it is because I’m attempting to do justice to someone else’s vision, rather than doing my own thing.

Whatever the reason, I hope that Paulette, wherever she is, will be pleased with my efforts on her behalf.