A Tisket, a tasket.....

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!

The Anonymous Pink Lady

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.