Hint: It is a truth universally acknowledged that she is my favorite writer.

We always have 3 birthday candles in our family (except for little children)—one for yesterday, one for today, and one for tomorrow.

Monkey is humming the birthday song (very quietly) before he blows out the candles.  (I missed that shot.)

“There was no preventing a laugh.” (Emma, Ch 51, 54)

LEAVE A COMMENT FOR A CHANCE TO WIN!

If you leave a comment about Jane Austen on this post between now and Sunday night at midnight (Eastern Time), you could win in our draw!

“Oh! This is beautiful indeed! this is the very thing. (Mansfield Park, Ch 27)

There are three prizes!

• the china thimble—purchased at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton!
• Jane Austen Writing Quilts DVD/CD
  The pattern is pre-Inklingo but the DVD lesson is a perfect introduction to hand piecing.
• three birthday candles, blown out by Monkey

We will number the comments and choose the winners using random.org. It is open to everyone because we can mail anywhere in the world.

“It was a plan to promote the happiness of all.” (Emma, Ch 5)

We always write on the blog on Jane Austen’s Birthday.

• 2009 Message
• 2010 Message

If you are a fan of Jane Austen, maybe you will celebrate her birthday by reading (or re-reading) other messages about Jane Austen and the Jane Austen Patchwork in the archives. These are a few of my favorites:

• The History of England by Jane Austen
• Fabric for the Jane Austen Patchwork
• Medallion Fabric for the Jane Austen Patchwork

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Good luck to you in the draw!

Linda & Monkey

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

Inklingo for Beginners

Tilde’s 15 Minute Challenge

This morning I stumbled onto the Andover Fabric site and found a new grouping of Winterthur John Hewson designs. They are absolutely beautiful, and the scale looks right. Click on Winterthur John Hewson on the Andover site. (No affiliation!)

Notice the arrows above the fabric swatches, so you can see the whole collection. There is also a shop locator.

More Resources

I have written about fabric for the Jane Austen medallion on the blog before. Click for previous article.

Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery (book)

Jane Austen Patchwork (shapes to print on fabric)

John Hewson was a famous British textile printer who moved to America in 1773 at the invitation of Benjamin Franklin. There is information on Barbara Brackman’s blog. Click. (I love her blog!)

John Hewson lived from 1845 to 1821, and was active in Philadelphia until about 1810, so he is the right time period for Jane Austen (1775 to 1817). There is an article about him on the website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Any time you find a great fabric for the medallion, please let me know, okay?

Aren’t we lucky to be quilters at a time when the quality and selection of fabric is the best it has ever been—in the whole long history of the world? Not only that, but Inklingo makes it easier and faster to sew Jane Austen’s design. Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Linda & Monkey in Canada
and celebrating Thanksgiving a second time with our American friends

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes.Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

Inklingo for Beginners

Tilde’s 15 Minute Challenge

Gotta love Reproduction Fabrics!

Have you visited Margo Krager’s ReproductionFabrics.com lately? She has some fabulous reproduction panels and they look perfect for a Jane Austen Quilt.

You can visit her site to see exactly how these lovely panels would look as a diamond-shaped medallion. Click on the panel above to go to that page on ReproductionFabrics.com and scroll down to see the choices. I sent Margo a window template, and she photographed the template on the designs.

These new panels are much prettier than earlier reproductions of the basket in the original coverlet.

ReproductionFabrics.com also has all of the fabrics you need for the other diamonds in a Jane Austen Quilt. (No affiliation.) The site is easy to navigate because everything is in chronological categories.

Jane Austen lived from 1775 to 1817, so you know where I look first! 

Window Template

You can make a window template to take with you when you shop for fabric for the medallion. Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery (book on paper) and the Inklingo Jane Austen Patchwork PDF (download) both include the templates.

But. . . maybe you are a thoroughly Modern Quilter!

Modern Quilters love Jane Austen too!

If you are looking for a more contemporary design, use the instructions in Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery to make a window template and take it to the quilt shop.

If your local quilt shop doesn’t have fabric with big designs or panels, there is another place to look! Try the ”Home Dec” department of your local fabric store. You will find many cotton fabrics with large designs.

I found several exciting cotton fabrics priced from C$28 to $60/meter in a local discount store.

Once you have chosen the medallion, you can use the color dots in the selvage to buy complementary fabrics for the other diamonds at the quilt shop.

100% Cotton? Compatible with quilting fabric? (Not too heavy?) Also buy enough for unpieced borders?



Dramatic, dark navy fabric.

Soft and dreamy celadon. I could have moved the window template over other flowers in this one. There were several pretty possibilities.

Chocolate background. Yummy!

Rich, black, dramatic. This is exciting!

A little bit of ivory!

If it is cotton, it is washable, but decorator fabric may shrink or bleed more than other fabrics, so wash it before you use it in a quilt! It is also important to pick something that is not thick. It should be as close to the weight of the other fabrics in the quilt as possible.

Baby Quilts?

Emma would have at least started a quilt for Mrs. Weston’s baby, don’t you think?

“Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have outgrown its first set of caps.” (Emma, Ch 53)

There are wonderful bright decor designs for modern babies, like this orange lion. You can eliminate a few rows of diamonds and simplify the border for a baby quilt.

Jane Austen never married but she had dozens of nieces and nephews. Her brother Edward had eleven children and he was not her only brother! I think she probably sewed for babies.

Another Bright Idea

Kaffe Fassett (rhymes with Safe Asset) designs fabrics with huge motifs in bright colors. They are at the other end of the spectrum from Margo Krager’s reproductions. You might find one that works for a JA medallion.

It might be possible to buy less than a meter and get the motif I want to use. Stand back for a good look before deciding.

More Resources

Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery (book)

Jane Austen Patchwork (Inklingo PDF to print shapes on fabric)

My variation with drapery fabric in an earlier blog message.

There are more links in the right sidebar and you can search the archives too.

Print the rest of the diamonds and sashing on the wrong side of the fabric with Inklingo.

Print with Inklingo and Machine Piece an Heirloom

This is a great design to make by machine. The sewing machine was not invented until long after Jane Austen’s time, but the straight lines and sashing are easy to assemble by machine, especially when the shapes are printed with Inklingo—no templates, no measuring—because you have a line to cut on and a line to sew on!

“It was a plan to promote the happiness of all.” (Emma, Ch. 53)

By the way, I first learned about the Reproduction Chintz panel because I signed up for Margo’s newsletter. It is a great way to stay up to date with what’s new in old designs!

Thank you for visiting.

Linda & Monkey

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

Inklingo for Beginners

Tilde’s 15 Minute Challenge (Win $25, Draw on September 1st)

  1

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, the seventh child and second daughter of Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra.

  2

I relented and let Monkey play in the snow the other day. It was pretty cold, but I was looking for something I could use on Christmas cards.

We’d better hurry up and decide. We are running out of time, and there are a few elderly relatives who would miss it. Any suggestions?

  3

This is quite an adventure.

  4

This was not a good day for sewing on the front porch.

  5

This tree is almost as good as the ones on Gulf Shore Blvd in Naples.

  6

Hello!  Hello!  Where are you going?  Don’t leave me here!

This is an unusual day for me, and not just because it is Jane Austen’s birthday. I am going to a Christmas lunch with four friends. It is at a neighbour’s, and it will be fun. The house will be elegantly decorated for the holidays and the hostess is a wonderful cook. Last time, we were still sitting around the dining room table at 5:30 when her husband came home. There was lots to talk about, even though none of them are quilters. 

This is your last reminder about Maria Peagler’s Facebook giveaway! You can still enter to win one of five great prizes. See the details in my previous messages.

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen! 

And Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!

Linda & Monkey

If you are looking for the 80 second video with everything you need to know about Inklingo (yes, everything, and it will make you laugh if you turn on the sound), click here or search the archives (above the header).

I enjoy the emails I receive about the Jane Austen Quilt. Today, my plan is to answer a few of the most common questions. What could be better than starting with a few photos?

I took this photo at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton in 2001. Since then, the quilt has been professionally cleaned. The quit is lighter and brighter without centuries of dust and dirt, and now it is beautifully displayed on a replica of Jane Austen’s bed.

I first saw the patchwork coverlet in Jane Austen’s bedroom at the house in Chawton before I was a quilter, and it has fascinated me ever since. It is the inspiration for five of my books: Quilted Diamonds, Quilted Diamonds 2, Jane Austen’s Writing Table Quilts, Jane Austen Patchwork (downloadable pattern), and Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery.

Jane Austen, Cassandra, and their mother sewed patchwork when they lived in Chawton. They used templates for English Paper Piecing. There was no preference for sizes which were easy to measure, because they weren’t measuring. 

As a result, the shape and size of the diamonds and sashing are tricky for modern quilters. The few patterns which appeared over the years simplified the numbers to avoid measuring in eighths and sixteenths of an inch, or cutting odd angles. That added another layer of confusion. There was no way to reconcile the sizes and angles in the various sources.

Since Inklingo eliminates the need for measuring (by printing the outline of the shapes on the wrong side of the fabric), I knew it was possible to prepare an absolutely accurate pattern to sew by machine or by hand. 

With the gracious permission and assistance of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust, we were able to determine the measurements of the original, so Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery and the Inklingo download are the first and only accurate patterns.

WHEN WAS IT MADE?

Almost every reference to the coverlet quotes a letter which Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra on Friday, 31 May, 1811, from Chawton:

(Yes, that’s how she spelled pieces. She liked freindship too.)

However, the letter may or may not refer to this coverlet. The difficulty of the dates is discussed in Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery. The problem is the date of the fabric panel used for the center medallion.

MEDALLION FABRIC

Quilters often ask me where they can get the fabric for the center medallion. 

The medallion in the original coverlet is an attractive printed panel. There have been a few attempts at manufacturing a reproduction of it.

If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all. Moving on . . .

I started with a cotton drapery fabric and then selected the fabrics for the diamonds and the sashing from my stash and from a local quilt shop.

Some quilters have appliquéed baskets of flowers for a lovely medallion, and others have created their own artwork to print on fabric, the way Emma might have done. (Except that Emma probably would not finish hers!)

I also used the cotton drapery fabric for the border—instead of sewing 2500 small diamonds like the original!

I sewed this small version by machine, except for the inner border of diamonds.

NOT A QUILT AT ALL

No, it’s not a quilt! The “Jane Austen Quilt”  is only two layers (top and back; no batting or quilting), so it is a coverlet. You can be true to the original or make a quilt. What do you think Elizabeth Bennet would do?

There are photo galleries of Bath, Winchester, Chawton, and Hampshire under the Jane Austen tab on the web site, and you can see the books and sample pages at Shop > Jane Austen.

I hope this mysterious patchwork will make you curious to know about Elizabeth, Emma, Fanny, and the other heroines, and entice you into reading—or re-reading—Jane Austen’s brilliant stories.

Linda & Monkey

PS  We have written about Jane Austen on this blog before. You can collect the posts on one page by using the Search feature (up at the top).

Jane Austen’s History of England is available and you can turn the pages!

When you click on the link for Jane Austen, you are offered choices for viewing, including, “I am using Microsoft Vista or have the .Net 3 plugin for Windows XP.”  I wasn’t sure I had the plugin for XP, but I checked it anyway, and it worked.

The page turning effect is charming, but it gets even better, if you use the tools on the screen.

“Listen” allows you to listen to a British lady reading page by page with appropriate expression. If you click “Read,” the text is displayed in a popup. Jane Austen had beautiful handwriting, but it is hard for our eyes to adjust to the style of letters used in the late 1700s, so the text helps.

Check out all of the tools.

I have been a fan of Jane Austen for a long time—long before my Quilted Diamonds books. I have been a fan for so long that I cannot watch the Colin Firth movie. (I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can imagine. 1) The 1980 BBC version with David Rintoul and Elizabeth Garvie is much, much better.

I bought my first copy of The History of England at Harrods on my first visit to Britain in 1978. I wanted to see Harrods, but the book department was the only one with prices I could afford. The little book was my souvenir.

Since then, a facsimile of the book has been added to my JA library. The illustrations were drawn by Cassandra, Jane Austen’s beloved sister, and there is speculation that several of them are actually portraits of members of the Austen family—not the monarchs. (JASNA, Persuasions)

You can trust Jane Austen. On the first page, she promises that there will be very few dates, and she is good for it. The only dates mentioned are “May 6″ and one other, which you can find for yourself. It is a good joke by the sixteen year old Austen.

If you are familiar with Jane Austen’s History of England, you are in for a treat.

If you are not familiar with Jane Austen’s History of England, I envy you. This is an amazing way to read it for the first time.

Of course, you also need Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery whether or not you want to sew a replica of the famous quilt.  (There are photos of Chawton, Bath, Winchester, and Hampshire under the Jane Austen tab on my web site too.) To learn how to hand piece, see Jane Austen’s Writing Table Quilts (at a sale price).

Now get over to the British Library. It is worth it, even if you had ”to walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above [your] ancles in dirt, and alone, quilte alone!”  2

What could be better than a little sewing while you listen? 

Thank you for visiting me here.

Linda & Monkey

Footnotes
On a quilting blog? Are you surprised? 

“All the overpowering, blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her.” 3
       1. Northanger Abbey, Ch. 7
       2. Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 8
       3. Persuasion, Ch. 19
       4. Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 32
“When the door opened, and to her very great surprise Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. He seemed astonished. . .” 4