Annual Bird Count

My friends who count the birds in their neighborhoods at Christmas report fewer flocks this year. I've noticed this too. The lack of birds in my yard is due to the lack of bird food in the usual spots. But perhaps there are colder climes where they are spending this winter. Canada has appeal.

However, in the digital drawing world I've been focused on birds in traditional applique.

One of Karla Menaugh's

Another of Karla's

3 birds/3 roses

Every year I do a Civil-War related appliqued block-of-the month on my CivilWarQuilts blog. This year the theme will be birds---birds in my neighborhood during the days of Bleeding Kansas. The first of nine free patterns for Liberty's Birds will be posted there on the last Wednesday in March, 2025.
https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/

These are extra birds---not using them next year.

I'm planning an applique source book including birds. I'll keep you posted.

The Bermuda Triangle---Lost in Confusion

 

Bermuda is east of the Carolinas.

On the point of the "Bermuda Triangle."

Well, there is something about the Bermuda Triangle where planes & ships

are thought to disappear into another time dimension....

Facts or alternate facts? Nobody seems to care anymore.

Textile historians are rather skeptical of a recent "discovery" that 17th-century manufacturers on the island of Bermuda were dyeing complicated indigo resist cotton prints, a rather romantic hypothesis without any proof.

The Albany Institute in New York is showing an indigo print

of the type popular with New Yorkers about 1800 with this caption that

it was made by specific weavers on the island (weaving is NOT printing.)

Indeed! What a surprise!

Instagram conversation

It's disappointing to see the tale being presented as a "museum fact." It's not quite akin to the falsehood that runaway U.S. slaves made coded "underground railroad quilts." 

Yet.

Cora Ginsburg/Titi Halle Inventory

Indigo resist print, probably printed in India

Posts I've done on Indigo Resist and its sources this year:

Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE: Indigo Blue Resist #1: Florence Harvey Pettit's View

Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE: Indigo Resist #2: "How Fools Rush In"

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2024/06/indigo-resist-3-testing-hypotheses_01179055915.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2024/06/indigo-resist-4-printed-in-england.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2024/06/indigo-resist-5-current-scholarship-on.html

We can hope.

Oh, Mary! Washington Whirlwind: 2024 Block of the Month

 

Mary Todd Lincoln, married to Old Abe, is a fascinating historical

figure. Cole Escola has developed a one-act theater experience that is

a hit in New York where it will run through January 19th.

The premise is that the temperamental Mary is an alcoholic, aspiring cabaret performer married

to a gay President who has many things on his mind.

Cole got to play First Narcissist Mary

Mary's temperament was quite notorious----me, not knowing a thing about the theater comedy---

turned her into a Block-of-the-Month quilt design for 2024. 

The play much funnier than the BOM.

But here are a few finished projects.

Elsie Ridgley did a version in Mary's favorite color.

Another by Elsie

Angi Nelson Wiggins:

Color especially value (lightness and darkness) is the easiest way to contrast shapes. Angi did well on her challenge of contrasting different textures in the same color range.

Denniele, relying on contrasting values,

has a plan.

Becky Brown

48" x 60"

Made for a Veteran

Her quilting group gave 163 quilts to veterans at the VA Hospital in Richmond, Virginia this year, a record high since they started giving quilts in 2011. 

I considered this set....

Considered it...

Finished!

Here is a link to all 12 free patterns:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2024/12/washington-whirlwind-links-to-2024.html

You can buy a pattern packet for Washington Whirlwind ---14 pages to print yourself for $12.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1614892877/washington-whirlwind-blockofthemonth

And post your progress on our Facebook group page: WashingtonWhirlwindQuilt
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2682765051880664

Whirling String Quilts

 

Collection of the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, dated 1889.

Donor Anita Landess purchased it at an Illinois antique show.

See more at the Quilt Index:

https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=fullrec&kid=24-20-216

We've been looking at scrap quilts at the 6KnowItAlls:ShowUsYour Quilts Facebook page this month,  posting pictures of some wonderful combinations of small pieces and ingenious stitching.

Jo Reece Flowers found a silk version in North Carolina

Here's a style of very scrappy blocks without a traditional name. We can think of 

them as Whirling String Quilts or as Nann said: A Cyclone of a Quilt.

The pattern is a version of a string quilt made of the smallest pieces of fabric left over from home sewing or acquired from a clothing factory.

1889 Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

Several date-inscribed examples in the files tell us the technique was popular in the 1890s till about 1920.

1893 International Quilt Museum

1894 in silks

1898 in cottons

1905, silks with a rather free-form hexagon in the center.

1912

But here's one obviously from the 1950s

Another question: How do you make one?

Lynn Evans Miller's Collection

Mia Koerner's Collection

As it is a string quilt you would want to piece it over a foundation---some were pieced over scrap paper but you might want to use a square of cotton.

Block over fabric foundation

And work your way out....

 What shape to start with?

Triangles

Squares

Rectangles

And some started with an irregular 5-sided piece...

Silk handbag from the collection of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts

The center shape doesn't really matter. The hard part might be to work

in a rotational manner as we are rather used to right angles.

National Museum of American History Collection

1891, attributed to Nancy Rutherford Fisher. See more about

this quilt from me and Louise:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/12/nancy-rutherford-fishers-marvelous-quilt.html

Ask to join our Facebook group. Each month we share pictures of a particular style.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1413180019082731