Quilt Flap

Piles 'o Plaids and One Nice Shirt

2011-07-13T18:09:00.000-04:00

This September I get to go to the North Carolina mountains again and teach for a week at John C. Campbell Folk School.
Go here if you want to learn more https://www.folkschool.org/index.php .

Two years ago I had a blast at JCC and they invited me back. This time the week I teach is called Scottish Heritage Week and the class is In Praise of Plaids. Now I'm deep into making not only the class sample but it's also the plaid quilt that's been running around in my head for years. The mission was to make a sampler quilt (uses different blocks) but somehow tie the whole thing together using plaids. Not surprisingly, the quilt's shaping up as very vintage in style.

First I mined my own inventory of old blocks. Not hard. I never throw work away. Notice the label.

Then I needed to go find every plaid I could lay hands on. Seeing as how my stash is 30 years old, I have a few possibilities. And the occasion was a grand excuse for purchasing a few more plaids as well.

The quilt is shaping up to be, hmmm, rather large in size. As I tripped over the top while ironing the first two rows, the project gave me pause. Pinning it on the studio back fence for a photo was the only way to get distance on the project. Right now the quilt is 80" wide and there's still five additional rows to be added to its eventual length of 116". Right after thinking, "This might be god-awful-" the janitor at the building leaned out the door and yelled, "Hat's purty!" so I guess I'll trust his judgement.

So we will persist. As a Scot, stubbornness is an inbred trait. Granted, our tribe is also fashion-conscious. Witness my brother Chris with his wife Catherine at a Renaissance Fair. Both are outfitted in their respective clan plaids.

The nice plaid shirt will die a noble death as it gets used in this quilt.

Two More Quilts for the Collection

2011-03-22T20:05:00.000-04:00

Why do I collect old quilts? And what determines how much I can spend? These days, the latter concern is very real. I am spending a lot less on my hobby and much more time on my career. Never mind that they're both quilt-related. I've been a quilt collector since I've been a quilter (middle 1970s) and a quilt teacher the same length of time.

Recently I added two more quilts to my collection. One was on purpose: I watched the ebay auction and snagged it when no one was looking. It cost less than $45, my upper limit these days. It arrived a bit more ragged than I'd anticipated. But I still love the look--somewhat Art Deco crazy but with a folk-art feel since the basket motifs are boldly front-and-center in each block.

The second is a great treasure since it was a gift from my sister Lili. When she's not the doting grandmother to Rylee, or doing tax returns for her husband Stephen's accounting business, or managing apartment complexes, or doing the books for the local antique mall, Lil looks out for quilts that I might like. And she knows I have a thing for the color orange. She gave me the quilt as a gift back in November when her family came to the beach for a Thanksgiving visit. Beyer's Album of Quilt Blocks & Borders lists the name as Iowa Star and says it was published in the Ladies' Art Company catalog in 1928.

Lil said when the quilt came into the Georgetown, KY antique mall, she bought it since she thought I'd like it. She's right. Who could resist scrappy colorful stars against an orange sherbet background? From the prints, I think it was likely made in the 1940s. The quilting is in large overall fans or waves called Baptist Fans by some. I think the term stuck because the Baptists made it into print first!

Non-Quilt Thoughts on the New Year

2011-01-16T17:26:00.000-05:00

Like my other blogs, Quilt Flap has been sadly ignored for months. But my thoughts today are wide-ranging. Looking through images of antique quilts is a pleasant way to waste an hour or two but it seems that a short message might be in order.

I apologize for not posting more regularly on Quilt Flap and, as soon as I get a better digital camera, I'll do so more often. The picture here was the last good one my camera took before it shut itself tighter than a clam. It's the view looking east on my street in Beaufort and taken early on the morning of January 1.

There are a few topics swirling around in my head but chief among them is that I'm lucky to be a quiltmaker. As one who gleefully combines plaids, dots, and striped fabric patches within the same composition, the lessons of the craft play out in a larger way in my life. Due to being a quilt teacher, I have gotten to travel and meet many different people who only have one thing in common: they love to make quilts. Occasionally I've taught in front of a class where English was not the common language. The solution to that challenge is to ask who is Dutch and who is Belgian in the class. Once hands are raised, I ask these folks to move around within the class. Since Dutch and Belgians are usually trilingual, between English-French-Dutch-German translations, we achieve a mutual understanding.

On very rare occasions, I have had to interrupt a class conversation that has strayed from the topic at hand and redirect folks' attention to their sewing. On two occasions the discussion (politics of course) has gotten downright heated. I hate that. But as the go-between middle child in real life, I've had practice in derailing people's confrontive instincts. Cut to last Saturday afternoon when, like the rest of America, I was shocked and saddened by news of the Tucson shootings And then learned that one of the victims was one of us--a woman who was a quiltmaker. Her name was Phyllis Schneck. I did not know her personally but in my mind she will always be associated with tolerance and goodwill. Ms. Schneck, a Republican, had stopped at the Tucson grocery store that day to meet Democratic representative Gabrielle Giffords and was shot by the deranged gunman along with 19 other people.

One of the particular reasons I love this craft is that it brings people together for a positive reason. We can forget our differences and together achieve something bigger and better (like a quilt) than any small work we might make by ourselves. I'm hoping that the post-Tucson wave of tolerance and civility that the news hounds are talking about right now won't soon fade away. I hope divisive and disparaging remarks and diatribes by media commentators will pause or even cease. That's probably a pipe dream. But I live in hope. Here's what's on the back bumper of my truck.

Not Your Everyday Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

2010-09-21T14:53:00.000-04:00

Called 'mosaic patchwork', English quiltmakers had been working with the hexagon since the mid-19th century. Perhaps inspired by beautiful marquetry boxes and tiles from the Middle East, English quilters cut hexagonal shapes from paper, basted a fragment of fabric over the hexagon and when enough patches were made, whip-stitched the patches together from the front of the work in rings of six patches around a center hexagon. The comparison to a flower--petals around a center- was inevitable.

In the 1920s the hexagon patch, long the favorite quilt pattern in Great Britain, steadily worked its way onto the American quilt scene. The attraction to the six-sided shape is easy to understand. The hexagon patch was small, portable, and easy to arrange in rings ('rosettes' to the Brits) and seemed a graceful thrifty way to use all those sweet novelty prints just coming onto the market. But American quilters, used to working scrap-style with tiny pieces of fabric, dispensed with the English paper under-patches and simple sewed hexagons together with a running stitch as usual. Someone here labelled the hexagon pattern Grandmother's Flower Garden, a tribute title of an earlier time. All things Colonial American were hugely popular in the 1920s. You might, in reading history of the time, think of the phrase 'Roaring 20s' but truthfully, most Americans, outside of large cities, thought that bathtub gin, flappers, and jazz were a passing fancy. Thousands more were picking themselves up from the flu pandemic, World War I, and trying hard to earn enough money to buy their own Model T Ford. It was business as usual and quilting was undergoing yet another rise in popularity.

Once when at a flea market, I spied what I thought was an average Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in the pile and pulled the quilt out to examine. However this was far more than a common 1930s GFG--it was a late19th century English-sewn mosaic quilt and now it lives with me.

The last picture shows that the patches were whip-stitched together from the front plus the edges of the quilt were knife-edged. That means the layers folded in towards each and sewn together.

Texas Beauty Quilt

2010-08-25T18:16:00.001-04:00

I have a friend in Oregon who collects wonderful old quilts and the pattern New York Beauty in particular. The block to the left is from one of his quilts. You can check out his website at www.billvolckening.com and see a video about Bill and his extraordinary collection at this link http://www.nwdocumentary.org/gallery/2061 . When I recommended an old NY Beauty ebay find to him, Bill and I shared our our mutual love of all things scrappy and pointy.

Then I realized that way back on the shelf, I had a NY Beauty pattern quilt too but when it was sold to me, the dealer had called it Rocky Road to Texas. I had seen it literally tumble out of a garbage bag of quilts onto the show floor in Houston, Texas and jumped on it immediately--love at first sight. What was there about the slightly worn and very soft surface of this small scrap quilt that intrigued me?

I think this quilt has heart. Not high-falutin' technique. tee-tiny stitches, or expensive fabrics. But heart and history. I can relate to the long-ago quiltmaker using every scrap as carefully as possible and imagine her showing off her skills as she carefully sewed the small compass blocks between the larger areas. This quilt is still a Texas Beauty.

Yellow and Friends

2010-06-09T13:03:00.005-04:00

As a brunette with a slightly sallow complexion, all my life I've been told that yellow is not a color I should wear. Perhaps that's why as a quiltmaker, I am so very attracted to the sunny side of the color wheel and often use colors like yellow, gold, and orange in my quilts.

There are marvelous precedents in nature sporting shades of orange and yellow, such as the trio of buddies here. Rosie the retriever is in the middle and we'll call the other two Purr and Peck. They are the pets of Gail Kessler, designer extraordinaire for Andover Fabrics.

Here's Gail's website link where you can see more of her work: www.ladyfingerssewing.com

When collecting antique quilts, I cannot resist orange, bright gold, or brilliant yellow--I am drawn to them like a bee to honey. This unusual folky Compass quilt was found in Southport NC but was made in the Apex area, c.1900. Then there's a 1960s Baby Bunting quilt from Georgia. It's a hot shade of orange and the workmanship is the pits but I love it.

Or again this c.1920's take on the Maple Leaf pattern set with bright cheddar.

I can't resist.

Scrap quilt, scrap cat

2010-03-23T18:32:00.002-04:00

The emphasis in this blog has always been on antique quilts but sometimes parts of one's life intersect in odd ways. Recently I bought an old scrap quilt in an online auction and won it--way cheap as I won't spend much. When the quilt arrived it had that familiar tang (eau de dust) so I threw it in the dryer after misting heavily with some lavender water. When the quilt came out of the dryer, both Gipsy and Earl Grey, our 10-month old kittens, ran to inspect it. Earl was soon distracted (it was almost dinnertime-) but Gipsy persisted in her examination. I think Gipsy especially liked the quilt because its muted colors mimicked her own fur. She sat on it all day.

That got me thinking about the origins of the quilt. I got very little from the seller. He could tell me that he obtained it at an estate auction in Texas and correctly placed its age as c.1900-1930. The pattern is Bow Tie. Sometimes a Bow Tie quilt was made for a man or perhaps simply an appropriate pattern for a quiltmaker's available selection of non-floral fabrics. The materials of this scrap quilt look like work shirt checks, striped tickings, and a few polka dots for fun. The mellow color scheme appealed to me, just as it did to Gipsy--who is a bit of a 'scrap cat' herself.

Although her Mom was mostly Siamese, Gipsy's dad must have been a tiger tabby. Here is Mama, back in early June 2009, a-swarm with seven kittens. Gipsy is determinately scaling Mom's hip, her small tail looking like a brush. Mama cat, later adopted and named Snowball, looks a tad shell-shocked. That must have been a wild night!

Quilting in the Genes

2010-03-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

I've wondered if the propensity to arrange tiny pieces of fabric in different patterns might not be some sort of genetic marker. Some natural tendency passed down through generations whereby those afflicted try to make sense of the world by controlling, albeit in a minor manner, the creative chaos. Highfalutin' phrases for this simple question: is quilting genetic?

In my family, I thought I'd not gotten any quilting genes but then again, I possess two very ragged family quilts. Both from my grandparents' generation (1920s-30s), the first is a ragged kid's quilt made from Ruby McKim's Birds pattern. The pattern, scanned from the 1931 McKim Studio catalog, is shown at right. My dad, who had worked on the quilt as a kid, proudly gave it to me when he realized I probably was going to be a quilter forever.

The other is, at first glance, a totally white quilt. Odd, since there are appliqued blocks which if viewed in a strong light, show as a typical Rose of Sharon quilt. And that's what strong dry-cleaning fluid will do to old quilts! Mom told me that quilt was made either for or by her mother. But that's it--the extent of the family patchwork legacy--two very faded quilts.

Some lucky people come by their quilting talent in their family and you can trace their heritage. Joe Cunningham out in San Francisco is one such gifted quilter. His website is www.joethequilter.com . Joe's own work ranges from the traditional to the contemporary and recently he sold his handmade quilt Bend in the River to the deYoung Museum. That's why he's grinning in the photograph!

There's an exhibition at the AQS Quilt Museum in Paducah KY that also displays Joe's work plus quilts made by his mother and grandmother. These are wonderful and I am envious that Joe can truthfully say he comes by his quilting genes naturally.The Dresden Plate quilt is by his grandmother Minnie Rose.

Joe's mom Janice made this indestructible, bright-as-the-day-it-was-made polyester double-knit beauty.

Thank you to Joe for letting me write about him and his family quilts. So, go rifle through the quilts in that old trunk and see what your own quilting DNA might be!

Quilt Appreciation Days on Harkers Island

2010-02-07T18:13:00.000-05:00

This last Friday and Saturday in the spacious barn-like wing of the Core Sound Waterfowl & Heritage Museum on Harkers Island, North Carolina, the atmosphere was somewhere between a bustling rug bazaar and a surprise birthday party. Before 10 AM, people started parading in bearing stacks of old quilts or wheeling in suitcases of their treasures. They plopped down in front of the registration table and the stories started reeling out. "This quilt was pieced by my great granddad's sister and she had seven children..." The registrants did yeoman duty as they carefully listened and noted all the family information about the quilts and gave each piece a number. This went on for two whole days.

The second stop was at the photographer's tables where the quilt got a pinned-on sleeve and was hoisted against a white wall for its "portrait shots": an allover picture, a detail, and then the back pinned up in a triangle across the quilt. Then the quilts came to Lynn Gorges' and my tables where we measured the quilt, looked up its pattern name in a Brackman reference book, speculated on age and considered the quilt's condition. Each evaluation table had at least four helpers: an evaluator, a scribe and two people who worked as a pair examining the quilt and calling out measurements. If the quilt owners had interesting stories, we urged them to 'sit a spell' and give an oral history for the Museum. We even rescued two quilts from the back of a pick-up going to the dump--worn-true-but usable by the Museum staff as exhibit backdrops.

Most of the quilts we saw were pieced quilts with only a rare Dresden Plate, applique, or crazy quilt. Many were string-pieced or a Log Cabin variation, a favorite pattern in these parts. One lovely faded partially patchwork, partially crazy-pieced quilt had all the bells and whistles: use of common dress goods and home-spuns, hand pieced and quilted, a creative combination of patterned blocks and scrap techniques, and marked in a Core Banks Cross, an allover X-type quilting style seemingly indigenous to Downeast North Carolina.

Can you see the X? The design was marked with a taut chalked string plucked at diagonal corners when the top was first put into the frame and then each quadrant of the X got parallel diagonal lines marked with the aid of a piece of lath. Ladies told me it didn't matter what pattern your quilt was-Flower Garden, Nine Patch, Log Cabin. If the quilting groups at Stacy or Atlantic quilted your quilt, you got the Core Banks Cross!

I hope to have many more pictures from Quilt Appreciation Days to share. But today the plan is to lay back, watch the Super Bowl, and enjoy the lasagna Rod has in the oven.

Qad! Qad! Local antique quilt alert!

2010-01-18T16:12:00.003-05:00

What does QAD stand for? Around here, that's short for Quilt Appreciation Days. Put February 5 and 6 on your calendar and come out next month to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum on Harkers Island, North Carolina. See QAD in action for yourself. For those of you not familiar with the coastline of North Carolina, Harkers Island is tucked into a crook of the Downeast peninsula.

Until electricity was strung to Harkers Island in 1939 and then a bridge built in 1941, the island was only reachable by boat. But now the once-remote island hosts thousands of visitors every year. The visitors center for the Cape Lookout Seashore stands at the eastern tip of the island and is right next door to the Museum where we'll hold Quilt Appreciation Days the first Friday and Saturday in February.

We're hoping that folks from many local communities will look in their closets and drag boxes out from under the bed and unearth their old quilts and bring them in. Think of it as a giant 'show-n-tell' session. If there are stories about the quilts and their makers, so much the better! Oral historians will be on hand to record the tales. There's Lynn Gorges, textile historian and preservationist from New Bern, NC, and then there's myself (general old quilt enthusiast) who will be on hand to examine the quilts. We'll measure each quilt, check their condition, give general advice on preserving and cleaning, and even look up the pattern name if you don't know it. Here's what we WON'T do: appraise the quilt for a dollar amount. This event is not about the money! We're doing this because we love antique quilts and want to help other people--the people who own the quilts--appreciate the work and love that went into these unique textile documents and to better take care of them.

A couple of years ago we held the first-ever Quilt Appreciation Day. Even in the then-unheated wing of the Museum, we saw a steady stream of people bearing armloads of quilts over the two days. We think we saw over 120 quilts! I don't recall the exact figure--my memory's kind of blurry after the first hundred!And now we'll be in the heated large hall, toasty and warm, and even have an exhibit of antique quilts around the walls.

If you're interested in old quilts and would like to help at this event, we'd love to see you. Please come on Friday January 29 to the Museum--there's going to be training sessions for recorders, greeters, photographer's assistants, and quilt scribes. Nope, no pay of any kind! Well, maybe lunch!
Just friendship and the opportunity to pet quilts and share our common passion for the craft. Call the Museum at 252-728-1500 for more information and ask for Pam or Joanie.

Black and white is Christmas too.

2009-12-23T13:48:00.001-05:00

My husband Rod is allergic to fir trees. Since we found this out, we've not had a live Christmas tree. Just as well there's no tree this year as the kittens would make short work of it! But last winter I got out an old wool quilt project and finished it. It was fun couching shiny black rat tail cord over the piece sketchbook-style following a chalked 'doodle tree' outline.

This year Doodle Tree is our Christmas tree and that's fine. I think black and white with warm red is a wonderful holiday color scheme. The black, white and gray wools were all old suiting samples. I remember the guy at the custom tailor shop in Lansing, Michigan had bagged up his older samples and was slinging them, bag upon bag, into the dumpster. One of the bags burst open and I saw the wools and asked, "Are all those bags wool samples?" He replied, "Yes-my Mom used to make quilts but she passed away and now nobody wants them." Tell me, how could I not take the stuff home?

He filled the back of my Toyota pick-up with the bags and they moved with me to North Carolina. Aside from the red wool borders and rat tail cord, all the elements of Doodle Tree are from those wool samples. I love quilting on wool. You can use bigger stitches (I quilted with black carpet thread) since the stitches tend to sink into the material if they're too small.

The Doddle Tree quilt was finished with black binding and I hung it on the wall this year. If you click the star detail you can see the black quilting stitches close up.

Merry Christmas and happy quilting to you all.

New Antique Quilts in the Big Apple (for Robin)

2009-12-17T13:18:00.034-05:00

I'll never in my lifetime get to see everything in New York City that I want to and now must add another item to the list. Textile merchant extraordinaire Mary Koval has just opened a store selling her beautiful old quilts and textiles in the city! It's called Green Planet New York Ltd and is at 520 5th Avenue.

Mary and her husband Joe are always in attendance at the Houston International Quilt Festival, plus they exhibit and sell overseas (Tokyo, Paris etc). Their wares span centuries: toiles and palampores from the 1700s right up to mid-century (1950) folk art quilts. Mary also designs fabric lines for Blank Quilting.

But if you're a quilter you can't go to the city without visiting The City Quilter! http://www.cityquilter.com They're at 133 West 25th Street, between 6th (also called Avenue of the Americas) and 7th Avenues. And you can bring home a lovely fabric souvenir since City Quilter prints NYC-theme fabrics. Take a look at their Subway Map against black--wouldn't an old fashioned Log Cabin design done in this smart stuff be a great modern take?

But how can you do NYC without a visit to the best deli ever? I'm referring to Katz's of course. http://www.katzdeli.com/presentation.html You remember: it's where Meg Ryan (Sally) has her favorite melt-down in "Harry Met Sally" and an onlooking woman says, after Meg stops groaning and writhing, "I'll have what she's having..." This is also the deli where a huge sign in the window says: Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army. The slogan got international recognition when Jerry Lewis in his first flick "At War With the Army" (1950) sang the beans song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhhoySpevw and this was forever embedded in our brains-- "The navy gets the gravy but the army gets the beans, beans, beans, beans..." Love it. So go have fun in New York--see some great antique quilts, buy some fabric, and pig out on pastrami at Katz's.

Still Crazy

2009-12-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

Some time ago my friend Alex Dupre made a wonderful crazy quilt block and sent it to me as a gift. The fabrics are mainly raw silk and metallics and the piece has both our names on it. Alex was a Tennessee girl who had ended up in New York City. We met and instantly hit it off. Crazy quilts aren't usually my cup of tea but this one's a personal favorite. Alex is gone now and this little baby is a tangible reminder of a sweet and funny soul.

The wool quilt is a French piece and wonderfully over-the-top with folky embroidery. I mean, if you're gonna be crazy, why not go all the way? It tries to start out with squares in the middle but then devolves to its true crazy nutzo nature at the sides.

And then there's this quiltmaker who started crazy in the center and then seemed to have a change of heart. You can almost imagine her drawing herself up and saying, "That's enough of that!" and quickly surrounding her patched crazy block with geometric Log Cabin blocks and long strips. Finally! Got that crazy block surrounded and controlled...

Details

2009-11-25T16:50:00.003-05:00

Details. I could spend years looking at the details in old quilts. Like the way the colors in this Sunburst block in an old Mississippi quilt are stronger in some areas than others. I wonder why she chose a stripe for the center circle? And another stripe for the sashing around the block too. Look how the heavy fan-pattern quilting runs right over the whole thing. Interesting eccentric details.

Years ago while researching quilting patterns (the stitched designs) I was lucky enough to be working in the David Pottinger collection of Amish quilts. Dave had a beautiful pole barn-type building with built-in shelving for his quilts. The shelves could then be covered by roll-down "blinds" of heavy blue denim to protect the quilts from dust and light. On the second day, Dave came into the building and watched me work as I transferred designs from an old quilt to sheets of flexible Mylar. He watched as the black marker traced onto the Mylar the hidden designs. He was amazed. "Those designs are on my quilts?" he asked in astonishment. Then I knew that he had collected those wonderful quilts exclusively for their colors and graphic effect. He hadn't seen or understood the function or the subtle beauty of the stitches. His own comprehension aside, Dave Pottinger did a great job of recording and collecting Amish quilts from a particular area in Indiana. If you'd like to see the Pottinger quilt collection online, much of his collection is viewable here http://museumcollections.in.gov/info.php?page=0&v=1&s=amish+quilt&type=all&t=objects&f=&d= at the Indiana State Museum.

Lots of folks are like Dave Pottinger and it's especially true in our favorite craft. Unless you understand how a quilt is constructed, you can miss the details. And I love the details. Here are a few favorite photos of quilt details. I don't always have an overall shot of the quilt but then again, I don't need the entire image to appreciate the work. Kind of like eating just the cherries off a sundae. Why do you suppose this 1940s quilt from Quebec has gaps in its borders? For the pillows perhaps?

And isn't this a nutso block? 'Busy' is too pedestrian a term to describe the frantic movement of the blocks vs. the pieced sashing.

This quiltmaker obviously thought white strips between blocks was boring so decided to jazz the quilt up with rick-rack sashing.

Don't you wish you could go back and ask these folks questions?

Letter Perfect

2009-11-18T11:36:00.000-05:00

As soon as women became literate, they started putting words into their quilts. Whether an inked signature block given to a friend or an alphabet quilt designed to subtly educate a child, words and quilts go together. Sometimes it's not even a word but an image, such as this hand print in an antique Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt in my collection. Clues like this make me want to know more---Who was she? From where? And why did she sign her quilt with her hand outline? It's possible that the quiltmaker did not know how to write but this didn't deter her from wanting to claim her work.

In the United States, the literacy of women in the 19th century tended to lag about 25% behind men's literacy until the Civil War in the 1860s. Women who formerly had been only semi-literate learned to read because newspapers printed accounts of the war and lists of those killed in battle. And women passed on their literacy when they applied their skills to their quilts. This early 20th century quilt top (an ebay picture) solves the problem of extra space quite well with a lazy ampersand, the date (1914), and a schoolhouse.

In the early 20th century a mail order quilt pattern company included these letters in their offerings and just the catalog itself must have inspired folks to try an alphabet quilt.

That's what happened to me. I re-drew the c.1920 letters in small size (3" square) and relied on paper piecing to get nice straight lines. I solved the odd number of letters problem by breaking out of the border top and bottom. Women have always known how to talk and when they learn to read and write, you can't shut them up--not even on their quilts.

Antique Quilt Appraisals this Saturday!

2009-11-05T12:39:00.022-05:00

Our own version of the Road Show! This Saturday November 7 is the Carteret County Historical Society's 'Antique-A-Thon' and it's happening at The History Place, our county museum, on the corner of Arendell and 12th Street in downtown Morehead City, North Carolina from 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. The public is invited to bring in family items for antique experts to evaluate. A $5 donation item is required for every two items.

All sorts of expert appraisers will be there. Bring decoys, furniture, paintings, textiles (that's me!), books, guns, clocks, silver, stamps, coins etc. Go root around in your attic and china closet and come on down! Who knows--maybe you'll find you possess something incredibly rare and valuable. Of course, the reverse can be true too. That ancient 'Ming' vase may have made yesterday in Hong Kong. But that's the fun of this event--bring your heirloom, tell the story, learn its value and history. Very cool.

Note: because the Veterans Day parade is also that day, I'd come early, get appraisals done, go outside for the parade at 11, and then stay for lunch at the Tea Clipper restaurant right in the same building. The Clipper's quiche is great and they make dainty tea-size sandwiches and salads. My favorite tea is their Lady Earl Grey, with cream and sugar-no lemon.

Favorite Wool Quilts and Not Much Else

2009-10-04T17:10:00.014-04:00

This week is jam-packed and frankly I have no original thoughts for this blog post. But then again, pictures of antique quilts are what you're reading this for, right?

When I'm on the road teaching and lecturing, the question is always asked (sometimes in an acerbic tone) : "Do you bring real quilts or are we going to see yet another slide show?"

Audiences want to see quilts 'in the cloth.' I understand. Presenting a slide show, particularly at an evening meeting of the local quilt guild, is like a great big invitation to a siesta. Here in the South especially, quilters sated on sweet tea and desserts will nod off as soon as the lights go down.

Maybe I should do a "mime lecture." That's where I won't say anything but just hold up quilts and let the audience admire them. That said, I have oodles of pictures of quilts on my computer and it's time to put them to work. The pictures here are of wool quilts. Not as popular today as cotton but formerly, when you needed a warm quilt, wool was the fabric of choice.

The Solomon's Puzzle quilt is from my own collection and was in Happy Trails, the book I wrote on the Drunkard's Path pattern. This thing is heavy as a dead mule. It's all wool, heavily machine-quilted, and that brown is an old Army blanket.

I saw this wonderful quilt while in Spokane, Washington at the North-West Museum. The blocks are a variation on the Fifty-four Forty or Fight pattern-makes you want to work in solid colors when you see a piece like this!

And I missed this incredible Welsh wholecloth quilt on ebay. It has a dragon quilted in it! And a harp! And I should have cashed in my IRA and gone for it. Feast your eyes.

Quiet Quilts

2009-09-18T13:00:00.022-04:00

Don't get me wrong--I love color. But a quilt made in a subtle palette can be so refreshing. Particular color groupings are getting type-cast. For instance, orange/pink/turquoise/lime green and brown are THE Retro palette primaries. Color combinations that formerly would have been considered jarring are commonplace. What's going on? My own musing: perhaps our on-line viewing of fabrics and quilts plus how a photographed quilt comes across in a magazine has deeply influenced how we choose colors for our quilts. Brighter seems better.

Perhaps it's just natural orneriness or a lifelong tendency to swim upstream but I seem to be entering a different phase of quilting. I'm starting to work with colors that five years ago I couldn't have touched. In particular I'm looking at greys, taupes and browns, and blues and appreciating these quiet colors more. To the right is an antique quilt top that I found pictured on an online auction...I was too late!

Hints when working with subtle colors: choose a graphic pattern-don't settle for any old patchwork block. Make sure you understand what's dark, medium, and light. And finally, don't be afraid to combine groups of patterns to achieve an overall effect.

Here are a few other beauties that get me doodling and pulling fabrics.
Interesting how pale pink lattice strips calm down the bright red used in this Log Cabin variation.

And then this 1950s Rising Sun quilt in blues and browns. The occasional yellow sun rays are lovely sparkles but the whole composition would be quite different if all the blocks sported yellow spikes. That one bright turquoise block, second from the left last row, is just a great accent here.

I apologize for not noting where I got this indigo image. It's not a quilt...it's an inspiration for a quilt.

Hmmmm. I wonder what's going on? Am I becoming more contemplative? Is it simply a stage I'm going through? Is it, god forbid, because my hair's turning gray? Can't be! I think I'll blame the shift on other influences.

Quilts and Kivers and Zakka

2009-09-04T22:26:00.007-04:00

It never fails. When some urban writer is reporting on quilts, he/she presupposes that quiltmaking is an almost-dead craft, Anyone who quilts must be a very, very, old lady. Dear reader, are you feeling your age yet? The photo to the left was from a 1929 issue of National Geographic magazine. We were already antique then!

Fact is, quilting may be one of those Alzheimer-deterrent activities. Also in that classification are chess, playing a musical instrument, knitting, and doing crossword puzzles. Quiltmaking seems to access both sides of the brain. It's good mental exercise in other words. We knew that!

Young sewers are coming into quilting in a big way but at their own pace and style. Call it 'cupcake sewing.' Just as the ingredients of cupcakes are the same as those of a large cake, so young sewers are making beautiful little objects, one mini-masterpiece at a time, rather than attempt a full-size quilt right off.

The Japanese have a word for it: Zakka. The word literally translates as "household objects" but it's come to mean small, easy to do sewing projects that are both useful and beautiful. One book, published not quite a year ago, has unleashed the floodgates for zakka-minded sewers. Although I got into making monster quilts right away (obviously I had something to prove) now I'm coming to appreciate the 'small jewel' concept.

Now if my nieces and nephews would just accept a beautiful potholder instead of that bed quilt!

Blue

2009-08-29T12:17:00.015-04:00

Quiltmakers have been in love with the color blue since forever. Although they might take forays into trendy lime green, black, and orange patchwork from time to time, if you asked what their favorite true color was, they'd say 'blue.'

The phrase "true blue" is ancient and stems from the famous colorfast blue cloth woven and dyed in medieval Coventry, England. In the 1600's patches of blue fabric were worn as a sign of being 'true blue' by the Covenanters, a group of Scottish Presbyterians sworn to uphold the National Covenant that opposed the rule of James I of Scotland. This verse was written by Samuel Butler: "For his Religion it was Fit, To match his learning and wit; 'Twas Presbyterian true blue."

Blue came to be associated with the conservative party in Britain and today we still see vestiges of Coventry blue in the political maps of blue (Republican) and red (Democratic) states. Regardless of your politics, blue is found in many quilts and here are a few favorites.

Many of these images are Amish quilts. A few were snatched from internet auction sites. They're posted here just for enjoyment.

A simple design with four large blocks makes a whole quilt.

A strippy Nine Patch quilt from Holmes County, Ohio finds its best friends are green and lavender.

Inspiration is all around us, as this blue scene, photographed from the second floor great room at the Quilters Beach Party, shows. You haven't heard of the Quilters Beach Party?! Go to this link: http://www.albfabrics.com/quilter_beach_party.html .

In Stitches

2009-08-03T16:07:00.008-04:00

If you love seeing the stitches in old quilts, no doubt you admire Amish quilts. But did you know that Welsh quiltmakers have been making quilts in their own style for perhaps even longer than the Amish? And on the dramatic dark color wools and flannels, the hand quilting stitches show beautifully.

Good news: Jen Jones, an American who lives in Britain, has opened her excellent collection of Welsh quilts to public view at a new museum. Please click on this link to see the video clip from BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8179225.stm.
Ms. Jones also has a beautiful website and sells a book about Welsh quilts http://www.jen-jones.com/ definitely a 'must see' if you're going to England.

The image at the head of this blog post is a close-up from a Welsh wool wholecloth quilt that I own. Bought on ebay, I was surprised when it arrived and discovered that the backing was a damask linen tablecloth dyed bright red! My apologies for the crummy quality of the overall picture but you can still discern the interesting designs.

Warning: if in England and you see a quilt that looks like a traditional Amish Center Diamond, do not comment as I did-you might get in trouble! Me at the Malvern quilt show years ago: "What an unusual Amish Center Diamond quilt! Grey, red, black, and forest green..." A dark-haired woman rounded on me immediately:" I'll have you know that's a Welsh Center Diamond and the Amish got the design from us!" Oops.

Scrapped Out and Hot

2009-07-27T16:31:00.002-04:00

If you're throwing dice (playing craps) and you toss a 2,3, or 12, that's a losing throw and you 'crap out.' But in the dictionary of American slang, 'crapped out' also means to abandon something because you're tired of it.

When I comes across really complex or nutzo old quilt tops, I wonder if the maker "scrapped out." Perhaps constructing the top tired them out and they never got around to quilting the thing. Or they gave it to someone who was supposed to finish the quilt top but who never learned to sew. I'm thinking this might be the case here. My apologies-I can't remember where I got this picture--I'd filed it under 'inspirations' but hadn't noted the source. If it's yours-email me for credit.

When someone had access to lots of the same sort of scrap fabric, interesting compositions happened. Like this quilt top likely made from 'cut-aways' from a shirt factory. The close-up picture shows how involved the maker got when dealing with these subtle stripes. Not to everyone's taste but I think an altogether engaging piece.

This quilt top below going great guns and then...the quiltmaker put it away and forgot about it? Or her fiance was lost at sea and she hadn't the heart to finish? Who knows! We could write volumes of fiction about the "what if" of our UFO's -unfinished objects to the non-quilters.

Plus, it's too hot to quilt right now here at the North Carolina coast. This is what I'd do if I could find a bucket to fit me!

Orange you glad you're reading this?

2009-07-15T11:27:00.012-04:00

Today is my birthday. July 15th. When I was a kid, my Mom declared that your birthday was 'do anything you want within reason' day. If possible, she baked a special cake and made a meal from our favorite foods. I loved pound cake and shish-kabob so that was my menu. But in the hope of keeping this blog calorie-free, I'm only offering visual treats today.

I've decided to indulge in my favorite color: orange. Ironically it's one of the colors I don't look good in-as my friend Sarah pointed out-but it makes me happy. The rose was a gift from my friends Sean and Sandra at The English Rose Flower Shop in Morehead City, NC.

From the "I'll take ten yards of that-" department, a photo of a 1930s deco cheater patchwork.

From Julia Renken, a student who only needed minimal encouragement, an orange two-block quilt she made as a result of a class.

An oldie-but-goodie from my collection of southern orange quilts. It's a Baby Bunting pattern, made in the state of Georgia in the 1940s.

Here's a picture of two quilts that are ancestor and offspring. The older quilt (top) is 1940s and found in Michigan. The lower quilt is one I made. This color scheme solves the conundrum: how do you keep orange and black from looking too Halloween-y? Add red, white, and blue of course!

Quilts in Merry Olde

2009-06-28T18:37:00.008-04:00

True story: in 1974 I took my grandmother on a trip to England. She'd been ill and recovered but my parents, fearing she might not be able to travel again in the near future, appointed me her willing chaperon and footed the bill for a two-week trip. I had just become interested in quilting and thought, "Aha! I'm visiting the mother country-there must be magnificent quilts in England!" But the problem, you understand, was getting to see English quilts.

I took the "hunt 'em down" approach that I did back home and went to flea markets and antique stores and turned over everything. The few quilts I saw for sale were usually solid red and white and (now I know) of the strippy variety, c.1900. Not scrappy or colorful but tasteful and rather homogeneous in style. In one King's Road antiques store, I got my comeuppance. When I asked about patchwork quilts, the round-as-a-pear proprietor came up to me and steered me by the elbow back to the door of his shop, opened the door, and not-very-gently pushed me out onto the sidewalk with this pronouncement: "We're not in the rag trade here!" Slam! Perhaps this gentleman's view of patchwork quilts might have been influenced by images like this 1817 engraving of a woman named Priscilla, a London beggar, who made patchwork quilts to sell.

I had no idea that in England during the early 1970's, at least in sophisticated London circles, patchwork quilts were considered the work of old ladies, somewhat tatty, and generally in bad taste. Since then I've been back to England several times and lo and behold, they have re-discovered their quilting heritage. Now English quilts are contemporary, very exciting, and when traditional, absolutely stunning. If I had an extra six weeks and God said, "Go, become a better quilter-" I'd hie myself to New Castle, England and apprentice myself to North Country quilter Lilian Hedley. Recently I saw an advert on the Web for some classes with Ms. Hedley and had an acute pang of envy. See Lilian's beautiful red and white strippy quilt, made in 1988, to the left.

The quilters and the pea

2009-06-08T15:08:00.013-04:00

I have two friends named John and Julie. John's an ichthyologist and is as often underwater as on dry land. Julie's a writer (formerly a reporter for the Raleigh Observer and on the Internet with Streetmail) and the public relations person for the North Carolina Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores NC.

The couple are also avid home gardeners. They inform their admiring friends about the first ripe tomato in the garden and take ribbing about "What-no engraved announcements?!"

Peas are Julie's particular pride and joy. She snaps pea portraits and then sautes them with garlic. She regards radishes as opportunities for artistic expression.

Recently John and Julie made a quilt. Julie sent me the story of the quilt and since I cannot improve on her writing, the story follows unedited.

The Quilt by Julie Powers
I found the pieces for this quilt in a box put out for trash pickup six or seven years ago. Somebody had obviously cleaned the attic or the closet. I knew (know) nothing about quilting, but I couldn't stand to see all that history and handwork thrown away. Even if the 1940s/50s – era squares were startling to behold: vivid prints paired with dark pink/navy hounds tooth diagonals. I think you called it a “North Carolina” pattern and said people had stopped using the pieces in a pinwheel design after WWII because it too closely resembled swastikas. That still left plenty of options – too many for me, it turned out. I played with the parts for awhile but the box eventually ended up in the same closet with my Christmas decorations. Every December I’d come across it and ponder how to put this quilt together. The challenge was both logistical, as I had no quilting experience, and artistic. A few particularly arresting prints dominated the collection, while others were one-of-a-kind. I am not a visual thinker, and my unimaginative tendency for symmetry in such matters was no match for all this disparity.

Then John and I finally finished tiling my enclosed porch’s floor – I had bought the tiles about the same time I found the quilt parts. His demonstrated talent for working with square things and propelling stalled projects forward inspired me to ask for help. John is anything but a slave to symmetry, and he was predictably enthusiastic. We went to work one winter weekend, arranging, photographing for future reference, then rearranging. We came up with probably 20 variations over a week of experimentation. We would finally agree that a certain rendition was the best we could do. And a half-hour later, we’d be back, trying yet another design. Finally, we declared it over, done, finished for the last time and made a pact that neither of us would change it again. I fell asleep in front of the fire and when I woke up a half-hour later, I heard a soft rustling as John rearranged the pieces. I had to admit he improved it. The next morning while he slept in, I did my own final adjustments, and he also conceded they made it better. We swore another pact, and I got out the sewing machine to make sure this one held. Turns out, it didn’t but only because of a couple of small inadvertent mix-ups in the sewing process.

As I sat at the machine, I couldn't help but think of the quilter who had done all the work by hand. Who had spent all that time putting those little pieces together? What kind of design did the maker have in mind? Why did it get set aside for so long? I had a feeling the originator would be pleased that finally there was some movement. I wasn’t entirely sure I could complete it, daunted as I was by backing and batting and the actual quilting. This stage got even more complicated when we decided to recycle an old comforter for the batting and an orphaned purple bed sheet for the backing. My workmanship will not win any prizes, but I finally managed to stitch it all together.

The finished product is indeed proof of the phenomenon that the sum is sometimes greater than the parts. The pink and navy and purple are rarely repeated or even complemented in the flowered, striped and geometric prints that John fondly describes as “bilious.” Yet it all works together for a pleasing result. John and I are full of self-congratulatory pride for the rescue and release of the long-dormant creativity – and frugality -- that went into the squares decades ago. Our wacky design is less outlandish than he would have rendered alone and less pedestrian than I could have produced solo. And, of course, there is always the aura of mystery surrounding our third, unseen collaborator.

It’s warm, functional and fun, and we love telling its story. That’s part of the definition of “quilt,” isn’t it?

Fabrics I Have Loved

2009-05-23T18:04:00.010-04:00

I love prints with clear Art Deco designs. True, for many quiltmakers these prints are a challenge. I mean, just how do you cut these things up and sew them back together in patchwork?!

Maybe not at all. I have some fabrics that will never get sliced since they're just too pretty like they are and besides, I haven't found, or designed, a good enough quilt pattern to showcase them properly. Or maybe I just like to pet them.

Boldly outlined pansies (I think) and the suggestion of cherries.

And a length of curtain fabric with swirly roses reminiscent of Charles Rennie Makintosh, the Scottish designer and painter, whose work I love and whose influence is still being felt today although many folks don't know about him. Take some time and click around the CRM Society website http://www.crmsociety.com/ .

"Are you the lady who likes old quilts?"

2009-05-06T16:37:00.012-04:00

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded impatient. "I've been cleaning up my mother's estate and I found these--want to buy 'em?" I gulped. "Well," I started, "I surely could look at them-". "Good," she declared, "I'll be right over!" And one of the shortest phone conversations ever led to me buying a quilt top that has become one of my favorites. The old quilt displays fabrics from 1890-1920 but I sewed two new borders on just to have sturdier fabric around the vulnerable edges. Now I teach it in a class and there are any number of smaller versions of the Swartz Creek Scrap Quilt running around.

The original quilt top was from Swartz Creek, Pennsylvania, a place that I can't find on any map. The quilt is quite a crowded combination of 4" squares, Four Patch blocks pieced from littler squares, and Pinwheel blocks. Lots and lots of Pinwheel blocks. Every other block is a Pinwheel.
That fact starts to sink in as students work on the pattern in class.

People send me pictures months-years-later after they've got their quilt tops done. I encourage them to personalize the pattern and they get creative with the borders. Elaine Dumler from Denver added applique borders for a sweet touch. I apologize for not identifying all the makers of these quilts. If the makers read this, please send me a corrective email and I'll gladly give you credit.

A Perfect Quilt

2009-04-30T18:02:00.008-04:00

The quilt pictured belongs to my friend Jan Willis. The pattern is one most modern quilters would call Bear's Paw. But this baby is from Pennsylvania and dates from the 1870s. When the block was done in two colors and set on the diagonal, Pennsylvanian quiltmakers more often called it by the heart-warming name Hand of Friendship. But wait--there's a third name even more colorful: Duck's Foot in the Mud.

This is the sweetest example of a 19th century quilt. It's what I'd call 'honest' in that it has no pretensions, the design is simple, there are sweet touches like the applique border, and it's beautifully made. Count those stitches--12-14 stitches to the inch! Since Jan's a crackerjack hand quilter herself, this quilt belongs to the right person. Red, green, white, and indigo-this quilt is so American!

Spring Strippers

2009-04-09T12:28:00.015-04:00

Oh, I meant spring strip quilts...just thought this picture might get your attention! Between Cincinnati and Maysville KY there's a huge garden shop that displays a parking lot-full of cement works of art. As my sister Mary Frances and I drove through, I snapped pictures right and left. This was my favorite. The grouping makes me think it needs a caption. Something like,
" God bless America where we can walk in the sun-both clothed and nude."

Back to strip quilts-there's hundreds of different patterns you'd call 'strip quilts' and all they have in common is that fabrics are cut into strips and then sewn back into blocks. If you're not a quilter, don't question the logic of cutting up perfectly good fabric and then sewing it back together again. And if you're married to one, just be glad that quilting keeps us off the streets and out of the bars.

Back to strip quilts once again: strip quilts can be scrappy, funky, and informal or quite elegant. The Shadow Box quilt (image from an ebay listing) is one of the simplest of strip quilts: start with a square in the center and sew until the quilt's the right size.

A little further up the strip quilt tree is the Log Cabin pattern. Again start with a square but this time divide your strips into light and dark groups and sew the work into smaller blocks. When you have a pile of blocks, then have even more fun by arranging the blocks into some interesting overall pattern. The quilt pictured here (ebay image) is quite an individualistic take on a Log Cabin arrangement called Sunshine and Shadow. I like the way it's off-center and even has a few all-light and a few all-dark blocks. Like, "Fooled you! You thought this was an average Log Cabin-naaa!"

Then there's the queen of strip quilt patterns and the most dressed-up-to-go-to-town Log Cabin, the Pineapple block. It also starts with a square but eventually blossoms in eight directions. In the 20th century, pattern makers for quilting columns in the newspapers got ulcers trying to draft this thing but I make the Pineapple old-style: cut strips, lay down on a backing block, sew, and then cut to size. Works for me.

Earth-Shaking Quilting News!

2009-04-01T12:16:00.003-04:00

Oh boy--if you're a quilter, this is gonna change your life! Applique, formerly out of reach for less than accomplished quilters, is now easy-peasy to do. I've been using a hot-glue gun to fasten down complex applique shapes and it's working! No more needle-turn, tiny stitches, fussy and time-consuming work! In fact, no more thread-n-needle needed at all! Just cut and glue that puppy in place!

Here's the quilt I made yesterday using this method. Oh, and happy April's Fool Day.

Curves Ahead

2009-03-18T10:35:00.009-04:00

When first starting to quilt, I ignored curved patterns altogether. After disastrous attempts at set-in sleeves, I realized my skills were not advanced enough to approach the mysteries of matching two curved pieces of fabric. I assumed there was a secret trick that, in time, experienced quilters would share with me. Something like being initiated into the Masons: "All will be revealed." But for right now, there were loads of patterns that were easy straight-line sewing. Why should I attempt curves?

Of course you're always drawn to the thing you can't have! The same is true for quilt patterns. I lusted after curves but from afar. A few of the patterns out of my reach were the following: Drunkard's Path, Clamshell, and any Compass-type design you needed to drop into a square. Off limits.

These pictures show a few of the many curves I was missing out on.

One day I got tired of my ignorance and set out to 'learn myself' Curves. That's the subject of next week's blog entry.

About the quilts pictured in this blog: the yellow and black Snake's Trail is from an ebay auction and was made In Kentucky. The Clamshell is a midwest quilt c.1930. The Full and Change of the Moon is another Kentucky classic and the North Carolina Drunkard's Path is from my own collection.

Their ignorance is my bliss

2009-03-05T21:17:00.019-05:00

The online auction description was brief: 'Old unfinished quilt, some holes, has printing with word Harrison, good for cutter.' Oh really... A quick scan through the pictures and I started checking my wallet. Fortunately, I had only one rival who dropped out early and the quilt top came winging to my door, ignominiously swathed in a black plastic garbage bag and duct tape.

When I de-bagged the quilt top-what joy! It was what I'd hoped: an 1840s relic about which the seller was totally ignorant. He hadn't recognized that 'Harrison' meant President William Henry Harrison, our 9th president. Nor that the log cabin images and whiskey barrel were all part of Harrison's campaign. What was likely cut up in this quilt top was a handkerchief from Harrison's 1840 presidential campaign. The quilt top was made in the English manner , that is, whip-stitched over paper templates.

Harrison was one interesting guy. He started out as a young man in medical school but ended up as a life-long soldier and earned the moniker 'Tippecanoe' in Indian wars. Later the name was part of the first American presidential campaign slogan--"Old Tippecanoe and Tyler too!" (John Tyler being his VP choice.) He also fathered ten children!

Harrison gave the longest inauguration speech on record, a thundering one hour and forty five minute declamation, delivered in a blowing snow storm. If you need reading matter to send you sleepy to bed, you can find that text here http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres26.html . Harrison also stood for hours and greeted well-wishers at the White House inauguration party. No wonder he caught pneumonia and was dead 32 days later. I wonder if the quilt top was put away when President Harrison died so suddenly?

PS-if you're an antique quilt nut, scroll down to the 'pin-up quilt' at the bottom of this page.

Scrapped Out and Hot

2009-03-02T17:28:00.010-05:00

If you're throwing dice (playing craps) and you toss a 2,3, or 12, that's a losing throw and you 'crap out.' But in the dictionary of American slang, 'crapped out' also means to abandon something because you're tired of it.

When I comes across really complex or nutzo old quilt tops, I wonder if the maker "scrapped out." Perhaps constructing the top tired them out and they never got around to quilting the thing. Or they gave it to someone who was supposed to finish the quilt top but who never learned to sew. I'm thinking this might be the case here. My apologies-I can't remember where I got this picture--I'd filed it under 'inspirations' but hadn't noted the source. If it's yours-email me for credit.

When someone had access to lots of the same sort of scrap fabric, interesting compositions happened. Like this quilt top likely made from 'cut-aways' from a shirt factory. The close-up picture shows how involved the maker got when dealing with these subtle stripes. Not to everyone's taste but I think an altogether engaging piece.

This quilt top was going great guns and then...the quiltmaker put it away and forgot about it? Or her fiance was lost at sea and she hadn't the heart to finish? Who knows! We could write volumes of fiction about the "what if" of our UFO's -unfinished objects to the non-quilters.

Plus, it's too hot to quilt right now here at the North Carolina coast. This is what I'd do if I could find a bucket to fit me!

X marks the spot

2009-02-15T14:06:00.012-05:00

When railroads began to crisscross America, they were exciting phenomena. Trains were noisy and huge. As a train streamed by, a farmer standing in his field could look up and fantasize, for a moment, where that train might take him. Even the Amish, bound to a long tradition of non-mechanization, were not immune to the romance of the iron horse.

One quilt pattern occasionally seen in Midwest Amish quilts is called Railroad Crossing. The block basically echoes the diagonal cross of the classic railroad sign and then is complimented by lots of tiny triangles. The two block version here is thought to have been a hired man's quilt--a long and narrow quilt made to cover a cot or bunk of the hired laborer's bed.

The Railroad Crossing pattern can also been made in multi-colored scraps as shown in this four-block crib quilt.

Instead of stars in the center of the X's, as in the hired man's quilt, the dark X shapes remain while the backgrounds, pieced in a variety of jewel-like colors, become the exciting part of the quilt. The small lavender churn dash at the quilt's center just happens when pieced sashing and four tiny triangles meet.

I love trains and also want to make a quilt in this pattern one day. Think I'll go for the multi-scrap look as a touch of ADD keeps me from working in a limited palette.

Mushy Colors

2009-02-03T13:02:00.010-05:00

Although I teach design and color in quilt classes, sometimes, in my personal work, I get off my 'contrast is so important' soapbox. My color sense slides into mush. Literally, mush. Favorite mush colors: gray, brown, pink, lavender, and odd yellows.

I can't quite tell why or when the mush gene will strike. It's always an experiment. Witness this recent odd small quilt top I made. Ostensibly it's for a kid but honestly, no self-respecting rugrat raised on Crayola brights would want the thing. I made it for me.

This barely-there antique Bars quilt has a kind of softness that you might not even be able to duplicate in new fabric . It has a feeling of made-from-your-old-jammies. A very restful quilt but never to win a prize in a quilt show. Which gets me to thinking...is the tendency toward high contrast in modern quilts a result of more quilts being entered in judged quilt shows where contrast is a criterion? Or is it because we see quilt images in magazines or on the computer screen and high contrast is preferable in those mediums?

Just musing here...it's a gray day and mushy colors somehow fit the mood. This snatched from ebay image of a Hanging Nine Patch is, in this mush-lover's opinion, just about perfect. This is one quilt I want to make when I grow up.

Quilts Seen in Movies

2009-01-26T15:33:00.007-05:00

I get irritated when I see a quilt in a film and realize that the style, age, pattern etc. is out of sinc with the time period. Example: in Coal Miner's Daughter, Loretta Lynn's parents snuggle under a polyester doubleknit quilt--sheesh! Or in the TV movie Sarah, Plain and Tall, the quilt on the bed is a classic 1930s pastel Double Wedding Ring but the story takes place in 1913.

For me, that sort of ignorance means that the set/interior design consultants in Hollywood can't tell their quilts from a hole in the ground. Wouldn't antique car buffs rise in anger and disbelief if a Model T went whizzing by in the background of a western? Bet your bippy.
On the other hand, last week on the Turner movie channel, National Velvet played and lo and behold, there was a quilt featured on the bed of the eldest Brown daughter Edweena, played by an incredibly young Angela Lansbury. A sort of pink and brown Irish Chain variation, c.1880s, and actually right for the movie's time period and place (England). I asked about the quilt on a chat line for antique quilt lovers and Barbara Burnham watched the movie and sent these pictures. Thank you Barbara.

Now with the internet and people weighing in on everything, these visual bloopers can be pointed out and hopefully avoided in the future. However, there is an employment possibility here...and I am ready and willing to step into the breach. I declare here and now that I am available for consulting work as a 'quilt wrangler' on any film productions. Hollywood, I'm waiting.

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

2009-01-21T18:15:00.005-05:00

I have no idea where I got this picture. All I know is that it's a very cool quilt. The pattern is a more complex version of Wedding Ring, sometimes called Indian Wedding Ring or Pickle Dish. But in any case, the quiltmaker did one dramatic thing that catches our attention: she didn't place her pieced blocks against white. Instead, she chose tobacco brown as the background and that gives the whole piece more warmth and interest than plain vanilla white.

Although I've shown it before, here's the very scrappy Wedding Ring quilt top that I own. The background, if you can even discern it, is floral feedsacks. You go, girl!

A favorite pattern of traditional quiltmakers in the 1920s and 30s, along with Grandmother's Flower Garden, Wedding Ring was the quilt pattern to make. While billed as a pattern to use scraps, in actuality, most Wedding Ring directions told you to purchase six yards of white for the background. In the lean years of the Depression, that was quite an expensive proposition. If you'd like the classic white+prints look, here's a link to a free Wedding Ring pattern from the McCall's quilt site: http://www.mccallsquilting.com/legacy/vintage02_pattern/index.html

I Won't Grow Up!

2009-01-12T15:24:00.012-05:00

If you were a fan of Peter Pan, then the title of this blog makes sense. The lyrics of "I won't grow up!" were pretty much my personal theme song until I turned 30. Lordie, I do love the internet and was delighted to find Mary Martin still doing her thing on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giQFjf6ih80 .

J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), probably had no idea how long his half-boy/half-fairy character Peter would live on in the imagination of children. Quilt designer Ruby Short McKim also brought Peter Pan to life when she published a Peter Pan series quilt in the children's section of The Kansan newspaper in 1926. The directions were that you should save and trace each pattern as it appeared and then there would be a contest, both for a little girl quiltmaker and a team (teacher+child) sponsored by that school's PTA. The first prize, for the best quilt, was for $10 and the team prize was $5.

Great news! Ms. McKim's original Peter Pan series quilt patterns are still available! You can contact Merrily McKim (Ruby's grand daughter) at this site: http://www.mckimstudios.com and then click the Series Quilt button and get the Peter Pan patterns right from the source. Merrily has digitized and straightened the old newspaper drawings and they are a delight.

I am addicted to ebay trolling and occasionally turn up a gem. Last November, I found a never-used quilt top in the Mckim Peter Pan pattern and it's now mine! Here are a few pictures. The lost boys left, and a graceful Princess Tigerlily, and of course a pirate.

Now I can hum myself to sleep with "I won't grow up!" and snooze peacefully under the vintage quilt.

Post-War Moderne Color Scheme

2009-01-02T17:05:00.013-05:00

The time period right after WWII but before Flower Power hit in the 1960s is a less than twenty-year span.

A popular style of the time, both in architecture and in home interior design, is a branch of Art Deco collectors call Post-War Moderne. In addition, a twin obsession with all things French and Tahitian really got rolling in 1958 when the musical South Pacific jumped from Broadway to the Hollywood screen. Barkcloth with tropical themes, blond Heywood Wakefield furniture, and colored Melmac dishes were only a few of the interesting trends of the period. And there were a few really odd color schemes that popped up. Witness this combination of gray, dark green, maroon, chartruese, and peachy orange.
Things certainly have come back around since the recent TV hit Mad Men has started a fad in imitating and collecting vintage clothing and furnishings of that time period. But this color combination, unlike any that I can reference, remains unique. It seldom made it into quilts (which were being made less and less as women took to office jobs) or into mainstream clothing. Just on your great-aunt Zelda's back porch!

Stop for Christmas

2008-12-23T19:57:00.003-05:00

While this blog purports to be about antique quilts, sometimes other things take precedence. Enjoy your holiday. Be with your family. Take a nap. Let the dog tear up the wrapping paper--what a gift for him!
And if you're on your own, that's cool too. Make a phone call or two to relations-even if they're a pain. Reward yourself and go buy that hardback book (the one you're waiting for to come out in paperback) and curl up someplace warm. Under a quilt.

Anonymous was a quilter

2008-12-17T11:57:00.008-05:00

I first heard the phrase " Anonymous was a woman-" when I read Mirra Bank's book of the same name in the 1980s. But as I study and see yet more 'new' old quilts, I think that anonymous was truly a quilter.

Only rarely do I see a signed quilt but when I find a signature, it's a treasure. The name is sometimes quilted into the fabric's surface in same-color thread and is overlooked by the casual observer. Most often it's just the first name, revealing that the maker never thought this quilt might be viewed by someone who didn't know who she was and what her last name was. This Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt I bought on ebay shows the quilter's hand outlined in stitches.

Although by any standards a huge piece of work, a handmade quilt large enough for the bed is removed from consideration as "art" since it is a practical domestic object. And it's not hung on the wall like a painting. And it was likely fabricated from common clothing scraps. And it was made by a female. Oh dear.

And then there's the 'say it loud, say it proud' group. In case you missed it, this woman's name began with an H.

Quilting and 'Gone With the Boomerang'

2008-12-09T15:55:00.015-05:00

When times were tough in the 1930s Depression, movie theaters in the U.S. rarely closed their doors. People needed entertainment and it only cost a nickle to see a show. I was reminded of that when I saw the movie Australia recently. Starring Nichole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Australia is a sprawling epic and you need to see it on the big screen. My friend Ernie calls it 'Gone With the Boomerang.'

Maybe the movie Australia is a metaphor for our times. The story starts in 1939 and takes the viewer up through the Japanese bombing of Australia in 1941. Not to give too much away, but the classic Wizard of Oz and its most famous song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" feature as underlying themes to the action onscreen. It got me thinking...

The Obama logo (the road over the hill) was a media tour-de-force and reminded me of the yellow brick road to Oz. And his campaign associated itself with the lyrics of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." If you want proof of that, go to YouTube and type in 'Quilters for Obama.' Or click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlZ75aDzDI . Once I watched that video and listened to the song, I knew who'd be elected.

Is it coincidental that the youngest cast member of Australia is a half-Aboriginal boy who seems to have magical powers and unites Kidman and Jackman? And the Japanese bombing the city of Darwin was totally unforeseen--maybe echoes of 9/11? Any symbolism here? I think so.

The A Word

2008-11-30T16:54:00.016-05:00

Many quilters who work completely by machine have an applique phobia--they call applique the "A" word. But here's the catch: you might not do the technique (yet) but you admire it. Warning: if you're attracted to applique, one day you'll get sucked into doing it. Trust me. I wasn't ever going to do curved patchwork and ended up writing a book on it! So, a few pictures of favorite applique quilts are in order, starting with a British, late 19th-century medallion quilt. This quilt is in the collection of the Beamish Museum, a unique museum in northern England where you can view whole workshops and homes that look as if the occupants had just gotten up and left that morning. Put Beamish on your list of places to visit when you go to England. Here's their website http://www.beamish.org.uk/ .

One of my favorite applique quilt styles is the Four Block set. As in, four honking BIG blocks. This c.1880 quilt has zinnia-like flowers plus blooms that look rather like coxcombs. and then is complemented by single flowers at the North-South-East-West points of the square quilt. Nothing shy about this composition! The quilt's owner, Judy Roche, shared that this piece is from central Pennsylvania and has close cross-hatch quilting all over it. She says, "Great folk art!" and I concur.

There there's this recently found Baltimore-style applique quilt, likely made in the 1850s but only recently

displayed to the public.

Or this contemporary applique quilt made in Russia.

Isn't it wonderful that people are quilting all over the world?

St. Xavier

2008-11-25T20:35:00.012-05:00

An angel named Xavier at Google Blogspot has saved my sanity. Evidently I was locked out of posting photos because Internet Explorer and Firefox were fighting...or something along those lines. Now I think I know what to do and hopefully won't have the problem. Many thanks, Xavier! (I picture him with wings!)

Is there a never-ending supply of great old quilts? Sometimes I wonder. In these tight economic times, I'm seeing some super stuff on ebay and other online sites. As I examine these old quilts, I am always being educated. Here's an interesting detail shot that had lessons for me. It's the easiest feathered star ever. Even I could draft and sew this thing!

The quilting pattern is so typical of old Midwestern quilts and is called 'Hanging Diamond.' Marked first as a series of horizontal lines, the quilter came back and on a second pass, marked diagonal lines at a 45-degree angle across the horizontals.

The muddy brown-purple square at the star's center is a Perkins Purple, a mid-19th century shade that fades upon exposure to sunlight. Note: blog reader Dorothy Daybell has kindly sent me a link to more information about the Perkins Purple so go to http://www.colour-ed.org/activity/act_12/12_transc.htm if you love quilt trivia! Thank you Dorothy.

2008-11-21T16:14:00.009-05:00

Wahoo-back on the blog again! Google's platform did hinky stuff and wouldn't let me post photos and then boom! Today I can-I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

What I really like about old quilts, especially those made by folks who lived in the country, is that their makers didn't know--or didn't care about--the "rules." What are some quiltmaking rules? Oh, stuff like seams have to match and you must use thread the same color as the appliques...details, details. The rule-breakers are my idols.

Look closely at this quilt and you discover that the 'trail' is not only serpentine, it is serpents, as in snakes. It sold on ebay and was supposed to have been from the Kentucky hills, home to speaking-in-tongues and snake-handling churches. A little creepy but then again, it ain't all hearts and flowers.

Julie Silber of The Quilt Complex http://www.thequiltcomplex.com/calls these rogue works 'outlaw quilts' and she's curated exhibitions of them. Most people know Julie from her work with the Esprit Collection of fine Amish quilts. Perhaps because of her long association with Amish quilts, you assumed she was quiet and well-behaved a la Amish. Sorry, this textile connoisseur has a wild side and she loves a strange and wonderful quilt.This quilt is from my collection and though similar in its curves to the snake quilt, reads as a much sunnier happier piece and the curves are abtract design elements. Oh boy, does it have some slinky fabric in it! Polyester, rayon, linen, and cotton...all present in this 1960s Flower Power quilt. My hat's off to those ladies who conitnued to quilt through the 1960s and 70s. They were our artistic bridge between eras until the quilt revival came into full flower in 1976.

Welsh Quilts

2008-09-30T12:25:00.018-04:00

Old quilts have always served as inspiration to my own work and Welsh quilts, as in from Wales (the western-most region of Britain) are one of the oldest sources of America's quilting tradition. The photo is of a little sample quilt of Welsh-derived design that I show in my Quilt Marking class.

Most often Welsh quilts were made of wool and hand-quilted in whorls, spirals, and other Celtic-like designs. These primarily wholecloth quilts are enjoying a huge revival in the UK. Their patron is no less than Prince Charles whose most famous title is Prince of Wales.

Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, bought an estate in Wales and refurbished it to serve as a royal residence when visiting in the region. Eleven Welsh quilts were bought from a transplanted Yank, well known antique quilt dealer Jen Jones. This video, if you watch it through to the end, takes the viewer on a tour through the estate and you'll see quilts both on the walls and on the beds. Here's the link: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7470135.stm .

Occasionally a wonderful Welsh quilt comes up on ebay. Good luck finding one at a reasonable price now that His Majesty has joined the ranks of antique quilt buyers! Here's one that went way out of my price range very quickly. The front is bronze-y green and the backing bright orange. Why don't more of these Welsh quilts turn up? It could be that out of desperation, many Welsh quilts were rolled up, stuffed in the stove, and burned as fuel to keep warm. No kidding. An older Welsh lady told me she remembered her mother doing just that when times were tough.

The Way We Learned

2008-09-24T11:29:00.001-04:00

If you started quilting in the 1970s, you likely made a sampler quilt. The thought was that you wouldn't get bored making a quilt with different blocks, plus, you'd practice and perfect sewing skills doing various patterns. The problem with a sampler quilt, any sampler quilt, was that once the blocks were done, how did you choose the best fabric to put them together and what was the best block arrangement? Two huge considerations that stymied a lot of us...and accounts for many unfinished sampler quilts languishing in boxes and closets all over America.

I found this wonderful picture on the Net and frankly hope it's all right to use it. It embodies quiltmaking in those days for my generation. We were, and are, the Baby Boomers and that often meant a stint at 'back to the land' living and a re-discovery of pioneer skills. Here this group of young women and their offspring are proudly displaying a sampler quilt they made. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that blue fabric wasn't cut from jeans! If anyone sees this photo and can help further identify it or the people pictured, please contact me. Wouldn't it be lovely to know more about this group?

The photo identification said, " Mt. Warning, NSW (New South Wales), Australia, 1978."

Came on this old photo. That's me, also taken in 1978. I was very serious and very long-haired. It's a shock to think I've been quilting for 30 years. As a card-carrying hippie wild-child, I wasn't supposed to even live this long.

Here's the last verse from Dylan's Forever Young and a link to his website so you can hear the master himself. Read through all the song's lyrics and have a great day.

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/forever-young

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Nothin' New

2008-09-09T16:14:00.001-04:00

The buzz word of the the quiltmaking world is "stashbusters." This means a quilt that doesn't require you to purchase new fabrics. You use only what you have and thus "bust your stash."

For the four people left on the planet who might not understand the term: quilters have taken the word 'stash' (Dictionary of American Slang defines it thusly: "...a hoard of drugs.") and adopted it to mean their supply of fabric. My generation-Woodstock, tie dyed, smokin' Boomers-is responsible for equating drugs with the perfectly innocent concept of fabrics one might save for quiltmaking.

Quilts that use up scraps are nothing new. The photo here is a detail from a stashbuster quilt to be sure. A Spiderweb String Star from the state of Kentucky, this quilt was made between 1880 and 1900 and was one of the very first quilts I collected. It is frail and seldom travels to lectures unless I can pack it in my personal luggage. Some of the fragments are tee-tiny. This may be beyond stashbuster status-perhaps a "shnibble" quilt. Schnibble-Pennsylvania Dutch for itsy-bitsy.

Back to Schoolhouses

2008-08-31T13:36:00.002-04:00

Although it's still summer sultry and sticky here on the Carolina coast, kids are going back to school already. And even if you've been out of school yourself for a million years, there's something about September. Maybe it's those ads for back-to-school supplies that lure me visit the nearest Staples store and purchase shiny new notebooks and crayons of every color.

I can resist the urge to splurge if I re-focus my September energies on another symbol of the season. I love Schoolhouse quilts! When I see a great one, I want to snap a picture and keep it in my mental 'schoolhouse quilts to do' file. This one from, I think, an ebay auction, is one of my favorites. Love the greys and pinks in the blocks and that double zig-zag border.

I wish I could be as free to mix-n-match materials as that unknown quiltmaker of old. Here are two of my modern Schoolhouse pieces-much more coordinated than the antique quilt. It's a control issue...

The blue one was done just for fun but the brown one was made specifically to showcase a line of fabrics I did for Michael Miller in 2004. The best thing about the blue piece is that the strips and background fades nicely and the best thing about the brown one is that the plaids anchor the strips between the blocks. Go figure-I think it's a quiltmaker's prerogative to change the way she does things even when making the same pattern. Studio artists call it "working in a series."
I call it messing around.

Amish Quilts-what a treat!

2008-08-25T13:07:00.001-04:00

Wow-you never know what might be going on around here! Last Saturday August 23, Connie and Jim Thompson from Trinity, NC made their way to our patch of the coast. The Thompsons gave a PowerPoint plus show-n-tell presentation about their collection of antique Amish quilts to fascinated members of local quilt guilds. After the presentation, you could come up and view the quilts closely. Since I was one of the white-glovers who held up the quilts for viewing, I was in heaven!

Connie herself is a quilter (even Jim has tried his hand at it!) and thus they appreciate, from both a technical and artistic viewpoint, what goes into making a quilt. Understandably, the Thompsons' collection morphed from an earlier interest in modern art, particularly the color work of Josef Albers, to antique Amish quilts and has stayed on course with quilts for over 20 years.

Beyond the pow! impact of the color of the old quilts, the hand stitching took your breath away. Here members of the audience are examining an Indiana Amish quilt, c.1930, with great interest.
And in the close-up you can see what they're so excited about...it's the quilting!

Tiny little stitches, all done in contrasting black thread, make for quite a dramatic effect. The border, a maple leaf design, is especially nice.

The Thompson collection also included a worn comforter from Ohio. Made in a narrow size called a "hired man's quilt," this piece, with its comfy blues and browns, reminded me of old Japanese textiles where every remnant of cloth is treasured. This was the one that made me want to tuck it under my arm and bolt for the exit!

It was an excellent presentation and a great way to spend the afternoon-oh throw me into the brier patch! Let's root around in old quilts.....

If you'd like to contact the Thompsons for a program for your group. their email is jkthompson@northstate.net.

The Blackjack Quilt and Its Baby

2008-07-15T17:28:00.001-04:00

Sometimes an old quilt just fires your imagination and such was the case when I saw and fell in love with Anne Hope Marvin's vintage Basket quilt. Anne Hope had been given the Basket quilt top by a friend--who had gotten it from her mother--who had received it from a fellow Eastern Star member. Anne has a strong streak of bird dog in her so she searched out the Eastern Star lady and ascertained that the friend was the second wife of one Mr. William Smith of Blackjack, North Carolina. And it was Mr. Smith’s first wife, Verna Deal Smith, who had originally made the quilt top. Whew! If you're Southern you'll understand that we had to hunt down all the family connections....

Having ascertained the quilt’s maker, Anne proceeded to add the pink borders and to hand quilt the piece. Evidently the quilt top had its own loopy charm, as in, it wouldn’t lay flat and had been deemed un-quiltable by its former owners. But as Anne the eternal optimist explained, “The colors were wonderful and Verna’s passing familiarity with the concept of a right angle was not a deterrent to me.”

I drafted Anne Hope's Basket pattern and after studying the vintage quilt, made a wall hanging in its honor that I felt was scrappy and odd enough to be the old quilt's descendant. I call it 'Blackjack Baby.'
The set (arrangement) of this wall hanging used one of my favorite tricks for defining a border---split blocks around the outside of the patchwork into two opposing triangles light vs. dark and zig-zag 'em next to each other for an interesting final dark triangular border. By the way, this works only if the number of blocks is odd (3, 5, etc) as with an even number, the corners won't work out right.

First Flap Report

2008-07-03T18:16:00.001-04:00

I apologize for not posting about the Quilt Flap promptly. The very next morning after the Flap on June 21, I left for Missouri to do book research and today's the first day back at the computer.

Here's the short version of what happened at the Flap: lots more than we hoped for! Interesting and gorgeous quilts spilled out of bags and pillow cases, a lot of coffee and several dozen cookies were devoured, and we all made new friends. Forty three people registered at the door and they came from all over--both North and South Carolina, from Georgia, and even from Virginia.

We started at 10 AM with introductions and a little show-n-tell and then morphed into "the orange thing" which is generally me showing off my old cheddar and orange quilts. The old golden beauties couldn't have had a more appreciative audience! Lynn Gorges, game despite a bum knee, gave a presentation on Alamance plaids, those common workaday plaids woven right here in our state of North Carolina, and showed some of her extensive collection of plaid quilts. Lynn runs a textile preservation studio in New Bern. NC.

After lunch, Janice Pope (aka 'the quilt doctor') showed us a wonderful find from the Durham area. A small German community church, now simply called Brick Church, seems to have been ground zero for an unusual applique pattern. Janice has located thirteen quilts made with this pattern. Her find is the left picture. The rick-rack like edging on the applique motif is quite unusual. Another one of the Brick Church quilts was brought to the Flap by Kathy Sullivan of Raleigh (picture right).

There will be more pictures from the Flap but these will kick off the first report nicely-enjoy the eye candy! PS-if you attended the Flap, please send me some pictures!

Flap, Flap!

2008-06-14T15:35:00.001-04:00

A week from today we should be up to our ears in old quilts. Ah--go ahead, throw me into the brier patch.......nothing I'd rather do than root around in old textiles. The Quilt Flap is on at the History Place in downtown Morehead City NC on Saturday, June 21. See the sidebar for the short version of the invite. I've been getting emails and calls and yes, there's still room for you!

What can you expect to see at the Flap? Likely some wonderful contemporary quilts will walk in since quilters can't resist showing off their work. Like this gorgeous Hexagon Medallion by Becki Bucci that came to our local guild's Day of Sharing event a year ago. Isn't this a beauty? Hand made every bit! This should refute any nay-sayer who says the only great quilts are antique quilts.

Those quilts kept in chests and boxes that haven't seen daylight in a generation are what we're hoping to see next Saturday. Maybe even ephemera (paper stuff) like this Depression-era photo from the Library of Congress archives that shows a proud quilter (identified as Mrs. Bill Staggs) displaying her embroidered State Flower quilt. The design was by Ruby McKim, a well-known quilt designer in the 1930s whose work was syndicated in many newspapers.

Because the craft of quilting is known for people sharing their knowledge in groups, the Quilt Flap is right in that traditional style. Show it and they will come. Since quilters often work in solitary splendor at home, they thrive on encouragement from others. And people who have treasured their beloved family quilts might want information as to how to take care of them. Since this area of North Carolina has an abundance of quilts, we hope people will get those heirlooms out and bring them to the Flap.

Here's a picture from Quilt Appreciation Day at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum on Harker's Island last year. Jan Willis, Lynn's sister-in-law Vickie, and Lynn Gorges are researching the pattern of this vintage quilt.

You're bound to hear someone say, "Wow, I wanted to learn to quilt but I didn't think anyone still did it!" Be assured: quilting is alive and well and oh boy, are you in for a treat!

You're Invited!

2008-05-29T16:51:00.000-04:00

All right friends-in three short weeks, the Great North Carolina Quilt Flap is on. Right here, in eastern coastal North Carolina, Morehead City NC to be exact. This is the event this blog was named for and hopefully, this Flap is the first of many. What's a Quilt Flap? It's a show-n-tell, an informal airing of the quilts, it's a "Let's talk all about that quilt and crazy Great-Aunt Minny who made it" day. In the tradition of Southern hospitality, coffee and light refreshments will be served in the morning and a good time will be had by all.

Your Invitation to the Great North Carolina Quilt Flap

When: Saturday, June 21, 2008. Registration and morning tea and coffee starts at 8:30 am. The Quilt Flap commences at 10 sharp. Lunch noon-1 pm. Afternoon session: 1-5 pm or until they kick us out.

Where: Auditorium of The History Place, 1008 Arendell Street, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557.

Directions: come into downtown Morehead on Route 70 and just as the speed limit drops to 20 mph (no kidding) the History Place is on your left. Turn left on 10^th Street before the building, go past the Tea Clipper door, and come around into the parking lot behind the building from Bridges Street.

What do I bring? Yourself, your camera, an open mind, and show-n-tell…old quilts of course!

Who is going to be there? Folks just like you who are crazy about old quilts. Some museum people, quilt collectors, quiltmakers, historians, and the just plain curious.

What’s going to happen at the Flap? It’s sure to be a glorious display of old quilts. We plan three short informative presentations:

Lynn Gorges (Historic Textiles Studio in New Bern,NC

http://www.textilepreservation.com will speak on Alamance plaids and museum work with old textiles.

Pepper Cory, The Quilt Studio in Morehead City www.peppercory.com will show her strange cheddar quilts.

Janice Pope (aka The Quilt Doctor from Cary, NC) will talk about the challenges of repairing old quilts.

We hope there will be round tables on various topics and would love to hear from some volunteers who might lead discussions at these tables. Plenty of time for show-n-tell but we might have to limit that to four (4) quilts per person or we’ll be there all night.

What the Quilt Flap is not: This event is not an appraisal fair or a selling and buying show. We’re gathering to celebrate the art of the quilt but please leave the money thing for another day.

What about lunch? You’re on your own from noon till 1 pm. There are lots of restaurants in downtown Morehead. You can even bring a sack lunch if you’ll pick up after yourself.

And if I get lost? You can’t because there’s only one road in and out of downtown Morehead City. You can call the History Place (252) 247-7533 but the best thing to do is Google The History Place, Morehead City, NC and up pops their website www.thehistoryplace.org and a handy map.

Does the Quilt Flap cost anything? Depends on how many quilt shops you stop at along the way! This event is free. However, we do ask that

1)you call or register beforehand so we can plan the seating and the morning coffee time and, if you are able,

2) we’ll pass the basket for a donation toward the cost of the janitor’s pay, the printing of information, and the morning refreshments.

Any other questions? Email Pepper Cory (pepcory@gmail.com) to register. Lynn Gorges (palampore@aol.com) is also available for questions. We’ll try our best. Please understand that we both occasionally are on safari working but will get back to you as soon as we can.

"There is no blue-" Color Influences

2008-05-25T18:20:00.000-04:00

I admit it-one of my all-time favorite colors is that intense golden-orange that quilt collectors now call 'cheddar.' Perhaps, if you're quilt-savvy, those colors say "Southern, late 19th-century, early 20th-century quilt-" but I'd like the association expanded. Sure, I love the teal blue-cheddar of many of my region's older quilts. But then again, inspiration can come from many sources.

One of my artistic idols, Vincent Van Gogh, was so sure of the rightness of his favorite color triumvirate that he once wrote to his brother Theo, " There is no blue without yellow and without orange." I concur. This color scheme always turns my head. It's in my head-can't help it. My generation revels in it. Vince would have loved the chopped-down VW wagon and approved of the sentiment.

I have an old Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt and it inspired me to make a zippy wall hanging in wild fabrics. The curved block, being quite large, is easy to sew. Wow, this pattern has so many design possibilities! After inspecting the old quilt, I was delighted to see that the quilter had personalized it. She quilted around her hand and had even signed it 'Leola.'

How many of you have actually signed your name into your quilt? Or traced around your hand?

This gives a personal and unique identity to this quilt when described as a "handmade quilt."

A Tisket, a tasket.....

2008-05-06T10:35:00.002-04:00

This is the first posting in the month of May and that brings up Baskets (capital B) as a quiltmaking topic. The tradition of May baskets probably comes to us from rural England. May baskets were small baskets , or even paper cones, filled with flowers. On the first day of May, these were left on the doorknobs of your beloved's house, you rang the bell, and ran like crazy. A harmless kid's ritual to celebrate Spring.

But when the image of a basket comes to my mind, a fragment of an old children's song also floats to the conscious surface. When was the last time you heard, "A tisket, a tasket, a green-and-yellow basket..." ?
I thought that was simply a nursery rhyme, part of a sing-song playground game like Drop the Hankie. Maybe not.

Ella Fitzgerald, the famous jazz and scat singer, updated the childish lyrics in 1938 and A Tisket, a Tasket became a hit. Then again, looking even further back in time, some folklorists opine that the line 'green-and-yellow basket' refers to new willow baskets used to catch heads at guillotine executions of the French nobility during the Revolution-ugh!

Looking through captured pictures from ebay auctions of long ago, I came across a great green-yellow-blue basket quilt and couldn't resist sharing these with you here.
This late 19th century quilt is so well-planned. The graphic effect of many baskets is complimented by the sashing (strips between the blocks) and the dinky side flowers stand straight at attention. There's even room for beautiful quilting. Please consider this my May basket to you!

On the Path Again in Black and White

2008-04-23T13:15:00.000-04:00

There are so many ways to put the pattern Drunkard's Path together! I found this old beauty on an online auction site. The way this pattern works is that the blocks seem to fall down the quilt in diagonal rows, thus the name "Falling Timbers."
The variety of black-n-white prints found in this piece is staggering. Tiny-scale prints like these were a mainstay of 1890-1920 everyday at-home women's clothing. The dull prints were sometimes called "mourning prints," referring to the subdued clothing one might wear after a death in the family. They were also marketed as "Shaker Grays" or "Quaker Grays." I guess the presumption was that these religious folks would naturally wear modest, as in dull, clothing.

What I love is the contrast here between the tiny black-n-white prints and the prominent diagonal lines of distinctly Deco brighter fabrics. Perhaps this quilt top was made from an inter-generational scrap bag? In any case, it's a happy mixture of grays from grandmaw and modern prints that make for an interesting overall pattern.

Speaking of black-n-white...check out this link for the listing (and pics) of the latest classes at the Quilt Studio http://www.peppercory.com/quilt_studio.html
A picture of a possible outcome of the Black and White class is on the upper right.

Make Mine Country

2008-04-14T15:34:00.001-04:00

Old country quilts, as in, made in a rural rather than city environment, have a special charm to them. You can almost imagine the lady sitting there, working through her scrap basket, sorting and choosing bits and trying to make the best combinations in her patchwork. One sort of print tends to turn up in country quilts: geometric lined patterns like homespuns, ginghams, and plaids. Think men's work shirts and house dresses. These are real remnants of clothing from both men and women and are endearing for the reason that real folks wore them. To make the point: here's a piece of antique Mariner's Compass made in black and red plaid. Too bad some "crafter" (I use the term loosely-) cut the quilt up.

There's this beauty, fresh as the day it was made in the 1940s, that waltzed into the Quilt Appreciation Day at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum last February. The star quilt was made on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.

Or this collection of odd blocks, recently seen on ebay-what pattern is that anyway? The lesson for modern quiltmakers is clear: want to make your quilts look country? Better not forget the plaids!

Lily-itis!

2008-03-27T14:38:00.001-04:00

The North Carolina Lily has always been a favorite quilt pattern. In fact, it was the second block I ever made and braving the A word (applique) was worth it for the final effect.

I have a wonderful antique Lily quilt in my collection and it was saved from the decorator's scissors (being cut into pillows) none too soon. Although the huge quilt had holes in it and was not exactly clean, Janice Pope from Raleigh, NC (aka the quilt doctor) repaired and washed this c.1860 beauty and I am so proud to have it! She dealt with mouse holes, rotten earlier repairs, missing leaves and stems, lots of popped seams and did a super job. Note: the quilt is hanging from a pole at right but the photo has been revised to show the blocks in an upright position.

Mouse holes-ugh!

Inspired by the old Lily quilt, I wanted to make a wall hanging using its outrageous border. But one lone Lily block and that big border was too much, so rather than tone down the border pattern, I started to sketch over a lily block and came up with a much freer design. Meet Wild Lily, a wall hanging that I designed and pieced the background for but all the applique work was stitched by my friend Pinky (Dorothy) Porter from Morehead City, NC. Pinky's a better quilter than I'll ever be.

This is the quilt top of Wild Lily. It has since been finished but not photographed.

So while we may love antique quits, there's no reason to always make reproductions of them. I could never re-make that pre-Civil War quilt with grace but the wall hanging seems a fitting modern tribute.

Silly Season

2008-03-20T13:32:00.002-04:00

A short posting today. The season comes in like a lion! It's very bright and windy here at the North Carolina coast and there's even a gale blowing. The two local rivers, the Neuse and the New River, have white-caps today. No one in their right mind is fishing!

The Easter Bunny/Kitty pictured here is a Web-pic from a fairly obscure site where someone's cat named Sammy has his own gallery. The black-n-white fur color is right. One night coming home the evening of Saturday, Easter eve, a large black-n-white lop-earred rabbit hopped out from the bushes beside the garage. So now I'm positive that I do know what the Easter Bunny really looks like!

The quilt, on the other hand, is an unusual antique Amish quilt from the state of Illinois. In the picture, the quilt looks pinker than its true-to-life version, seen in the excellent book Illinois Amish Quilts by Jan Wass. This Log Cabin pattern, with a piano keys border, is a crib quilt made from wools and cotton sateens. Dating from the 1890s, its probable maker was Lydia Yoder Diener.

I admire the Illinois Amish quilts. They have a special earthiness and often display subtle and unusual color combinations. Long after most 19th century American quilters were working completely with cottons, these folks continued to use wools, probably because there were three woolen mills in the Arthur, Illinois area.

When the quilts from this book were exhibited at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX, I went back time after time to look at them. They are everything I love about old quilts: creative, individualistic to the point of being quirky, beautiful, and bold.

Great Quilt News From Across the Pond

2008-03-17T10:09:00.001-04:00

The Quilters Guild of the British Isles has sent out a press release that its new museum is almost up and running. Any chance you're planning a trip to England this summer? Every quilt nut going to Merry Olde now has another 'must see' spot! The new facility is in a historic building in the city of York, a city you won't want to miss anyway with its gorgeous cathedrals.

And just think, York is on the rail line that takes you north to Durham where you can also check out the beautiful quilts at the Beamish Museum...

From the Guild's February 6 press release: Europe's only museum dedicated to quilting and textile arts opens its new facility on 7 June 2008, in historic Yorks medieval St Anthonys Hall. The Quilt Museum and Gallery will become the national headquarters of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles and its world-famous Heritage Collection. The earliest known signed and dated patchwork, the colourful 1718 patchwork coverlet, is among some 600 quilts in the Guild's Heritage Collection etc.

Below is a photo of what the 1718 coverlet. Like many early English pieces, it was sewn in the over-paper template manner.
Isn't it exquisite? Congratulations to the UK Quilt Guild and I'll be campaigning for an English vacation in the near future. May 2009 is what I'm aiming for. I love England in May!

A Double What?

2008-03-11T22:28:00.000-04:00

One quilt pattern, the Double Wedding Ring, really took quilters' imaginations in the 1930s. Mountain Mist, a batting company, even printed it inside their quilt batting paper wrappers. The pattern was so unusual and challenging that many folks rose to the occasion, including one farm wife in Ottumwa, Iowa.I was teaching in Ottumwa and during downtime after class, strolled the local flea market and discovered this absolutely scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilt top. I can imagine the lady now, unrolling her quilt batting and discovering this novel quilt pattern. She evidently couldn't afford the six yards of white fabric recommended in the pattern so she improvised--with feedsacks! I love this piece. You can sense the quiltmaker's determination-" I am going to make this quilt, even if I have to use every scrap of fabric in the house!"

If 'Ottumwa' sounds familiar, remember it was Radar O'Reilly's hometown on the TV program Mash.

Oh boy, a quilter friend from Iowa has checked in and reports that things are not always what they seem in the great Mid-West...in other words, don't fall for any characterization of Iowan farm wives as simple rural folks. She also says she loves it in Iowa and then sends this report:

You can be ticking right along with someone, admiring her flower garden, her herb garden, her vegetable garden and her clothesline, praise her canning room and drop to your knees when you see her gold-painted meditation room adorned with only a mat, a candle and her yogi’s photo. You’ll be nattering along with a farmer about how his yield was last year when he’s interrupted by a phone call from a stock broker in Japan. Someone says, ‘Let’s get together for a wine dinner this weekend,’ and afterwards the elementary special ed teacher host and her bus driving hubby say bathing suits in the hot tub are optional.

Who knew Iowa was such a wild state?

Inspired by Crazies

2008-03-05T12:17:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while. some wonderful strange quilt surfaces on ebay, that online auction site. If I bid on something and miss it, sometimes I'll file the image. Such is the case with this wonderful early 20th century patchwork masterpiece inspired by crazy quilting.

Only a quilt top and made from common wool fabrics, the way too much (and just-enough embroidery) is what makes the piece so endearing. Somewhere, someone was able to buy this old quilt and I hope they're giving it a good home. Enough with the pillows and 'cutter' stuff!

If I thought folks were gonna cut these up, I'd be trying to cast some kind of "Do Not Cut" spell. Isn't this sweet?

The Anonymous Pink Lady

2008-02-29T20:02:00.000-05:00

It was the last day of the Mid-Atlantic quilt show at Hampton, Virginia. I had a little time after getting out of class and strolled through the vendor aisles. A lady from Raleigh had some piles of interesting old quilts and I stopped to stroke and pat the venerable beauties. Then, as occasionally happens, one quilt almost leaped out of the pile. It was a puffy country quilt, thick and crudely quilted, but it had such spirit! So the quilt, from Nash County, North Carolina, came home with me.

The quilt displays fabrics from about 1890-1920. The odd detail in the small center square is a glimpse of a novelty print showing white tennis racquets on a cranberry red ground! Normally I'd go for a higher-contrast color scheme but these odd blocks, sashed with a rosy pink faint stripe, won me over. I have no idea of the name of the block and couldn't find a match in Brackman's Encyclopedia If anyone has a name for this pattern, I'd appreciate a comment. The dealer promised she'd try to find out more about the quilt from its seller so I'll report again if I learn more about its pedigree.

What is there about old quilts? We admire them, touch them, and sometimes point out the maker's ancient mistakes. It makes the process of our quilting seem more real and attainable. I see the work of another human hand and that hand reaches out across the years and guides my efforts today.

A Favorite Golden Oldie

2008-02-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

Ever since I bought an old quilt at a garage sale for $1, I have been hooked on antique quilts. Granted, I've never again found as wonderful a deal as that first time but it is the carrot on the end of the string that I follow. Of course cheap isn't everything, and when you see a description on ebay that reads "Old, old quilt..." you know you'll be viewing tatters. One of my favorite genres of antique quilts are those southern, usually scrappy, pieces that prominently feature a golden-yellow color. By the 1880s that bright color was available in store-bought dyes and any farm wife could transform her worn fabric to the gorgeous marigold shade. This Star of Bethlehem quilt from North Carolina is hand-dyed (the gold and the green) and supposedly a Lumbee Indian quilt.

Collectors of antique quilts have renamed the golden-yellow color 'cheddar,' as in the color of the cheese of the same name. When I was a kid I didn't know what cheddar was--I thought all golden-yellow cheese was 'rat cheese.' Never heard of rat cheese? It's simply that rather greasy but tasty cheese, encased in bright red wax, that is wonderful slabbed together with bologna or Vienna sausages on soda crackers. By the way, although it's spelled Vienna, the word is pronounced Vi-anny (long i and long a) or Vi-nah (long i), depending on whether you're in Kentucky or the Carolinas.

Quilt Flap Details

2008-02-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

There's been a bit of confusion about the Quilt Flap. It is neither a strictly academic happening with papers being read etc., nor is it simply a quilt show. Rather the Quilt Flap is a hybrid event--part show-n-tell, part information about antique quilts, and lots of socializing and, of course, it being the South, refreshments will be served. Right now our date is June 21 and our meeting place is in the auditorium at The History Place, a museum in downtown Morehead City, North Carolina devoted to local history of this area. Their website is here www.thehistoryplace.org and the map is pictured to the above right.

At this time, we envision the Flap as a glorious one-day event but there will likely be other happenings as well.For instance, I'll offer quilt classes at The Quilt Studio on Thursday and Friday (June 19 and 20) prior to the Flap. Lynn Gorges will have her conservation studio www.textilepreservation.com open in New Bern, NC (45 west of Morehead City on Highway 70). I'll be talking to local quilt shops as well and we'll see what other trouble we can stir up! More will be revealed....

What's the flap about quilts?

2008-02-05T17:43:00.000-05:00

A few like-minded friends are starting this blog to see and hear more about antique quilts. We collect them and treasure them. Sometimes they're old and ratty and the smell makes you sneeze. Other times you find a mint-condition quilt that's been tucked away in a trunk for the last half-century! You never know. Lynn Gorges from New Bern and I decided quilt fanciers in this area (coastal eastern North Carolina) needed a reason to get together and have a big show and tell session. We called the idea a "quilt flap." This blog seems like a good place to start. In the future we want to hold a confab, a meeting here on the coast, where all "quilt flappers" could get together and ooh and ah over each other's quilts. We're thinking mid-summer, around June 21st.

I'll kick it off with one of my most interesting quilts, (detail upper left) sniffed out at an antique shop. The quilt had been on display for less than 48 hours. When I saw it, I turned red, then white, and my husband Rod said, "Breathe, Pepper, breathe," as we hauled the quilt down from the wall --it was tucked in one of those silly display rings-- and I ran to the register. The pattern looks to be some home-grown version of Mariner's Compass. I love the great folk-y hearts and spade shapes appliqued between the spokes of the wheel. And the colors! My favorite shade of Prussian blue, oxblood brown, and of course, the golden-orange collectors call cheddar.

Quilt Flap

Piles 'o Plaids and One Nice Shirt

Two More Quilts for the Collection

Non-Quilt Thoughts on the New Year

Not Your Everyday Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

Texas Beauty Quilt

Yellow and Friends

Scrap quilt, scrap cat

Quilting in the Genes

Quilt Appreciation Days on Harkers Island

Qad! Qad! Local antique quilt alert!

Black and white is Christmas too.

New Antique Quilts in the Big Apple (for Robin)

Still Crazy

Details

Letter Perfect

Antique Quilt Appraisals this Saturday!

Favorite Wool Quilts and Not Much Else

Quiet Quilts

Quilts and Kivers and Zakka

Blue

In Stitches

Scrapped Out and Hot

Orange you glad you're reading this?

Quilts in Merry Olde

The quilters and the pea

Fabrics I Have Loved

"Are you the lady who likes old quilts?"

A Perfect Quilt

Spring Strippers

Earth-Shaking Quilting News!

Curves Ahead

Their ignorance is my bliss

Scrapped Out and Hot

X marks the spot

Mushy Colors

Quilts Seen in Movies

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

I Won't Grow Up!

Post-War Moderne Color Scheme

Stop for Christmas

Anonymous was a quilter

Quilting and 'Gone With the Boomerang'

The A Word

St. Xavier

Welsh Quilts

The Way We Learned

Nothin' New

Back to Schoolhouses

Amish Quilts-what a treat!

The Blackjack Quilt and Its Baby

First Flap Report

Flap, Flap!

You're Invited!

Where: Auditorium of The History Place, 1008 Arendell Street, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557.

Directions: come into downtown Morehead on Route 70 and just as the speed limit drops to 20 mph (no kidding) the History Place is on your left. Turn left on 10th Street before the building, go past the Tea Clipper door, and come around into the parking lot behind the building from Bridges Street.

What do I bring? Yourself, your camera, an open mind, and show-n-tell…old quilts of course!

Who is going to be there? Folks just like you who are crazy about old quilts. Some museum people, quilt collectors, quiltmakers, historians, and the just plain curious.

What’s going to happen at the Flap? It’s sure to be a glorious display of old quilts. We plan three short informative presentations:

Lynn Gorges (Historic Textiles Studio in New Bern,NC

http://www.textilepreservation.com will speak on Alamance plaids and museum work with old textiles.

Pepper Cory, The Quilt Studio in Morehead City www.peppercory.com will show her strange cheddar quilts.

Janice Pope (aka The Quilt Doctor from Cary, NC) will talk about the challenges of repairing old quilts.

We hope there will be round tables on various topics and would love to hear from some volunteers who might lead discussions at these tables. Plenty of time for show-n-tell but we might have to limit that to four (4) quilts per person or we’ll be there all night.

What the Quilt Flap is not: This event is not an appraisal fair or a selling and buying show. We’re gathering to celebrate the art of the quilt but please leave the money thing for another day.

What about lunch? You’re on your own from noon till 1 pm. There are lots of restaurants in downtown Morehead. You can even bring a sack lunch if you’ll pick up after yourself.

And if I get lost? You can’t because there’s only one road in and out of downtown Morehead City. You can call the History Place (252) 247-7533 but the best thing to do is Google The History Place, Morehead City, NC and up pops their website www.thehistoryplace.org and a handy map.

Does the Quilt Flap cost anything? Depends on how many quilt shops you stop at along the way! This event is free. However, we do ask that

1)you call or register beforehand so we can plan the seating and the morning coffee time and, if you are able,

2) we’ll pass the basket for a donation toward the cost of the janitor’s pay, the printing of information, and the morning refreshments.

Any other questions? Email Pepper Cory (pepcory@gmail.com) to register. Lynn Gorges (palampore@aol.com) is also available for questions. We’ll try our best. Please understand that we both occasionally are on safari working but will get back to you as soon as we can.

"There is no blue-" Color Influences

A Tisket, a tasket.....

On the Path Again in Black and White

Make Mine Country

Lily-itis!

Silly Season

Great Quilt News From Across the Pond

A Double What?

Inspired by Crazies

Directions: come into downtown Morehead on Route 70 and just as the speed limit drops to 20 mph (no kidding) the History Place is on your left. Turn left on 10^th Street before the building, go past the Tea Clipper door, and come around into the parking lot behind the building from Bridges Street.